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Madison Scott-Clary
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<h1 id="codrin-balanartemis-2346">Codrin Bălan#Artemis — 2346</h1>
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<p>The pattern-matching portion of eir mind could not stop making comparisons between previous projects ey had been involved in. <em>On the Perils of Memory</em> had been a fairly disorganized affair, begun hastily and over far too soon, leaving the conclusion feeling outsized for the duration of the events at hand. <em>An Expanded History of Our World</em> (or <em>On the Origin of Our World</em> when taken with May Then My Name’s <em>An Expanded Mythology of Our World</em>) had been a vast, sprawling affair that was fairly well organized throughout, though transmission times toward the end had begun to hinder coordination.</p>
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<p>This, then, lay somewhere in between. While the news had been sudden and the pace nearly frantic, it had been nothing if not organized. What had begun as a simple message had turned into a sudden flurry of activity, where dozens of forks from four clades coordinated to plan around eventualities, discuss linguistic profiles, and work with Sarah Genet in her role as psychologist to discuss weak spots in the team and areas where they could shore each other up during the talks.</p>
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<p>This, then, lay somewhere in between. While the news had been sudden and the pace nearly frenetic, it had been nothing if not organized. What had begun as a simple message had turned into a sudden flurry of activity, where dozens of forks from four clades coordinated to plan around eventualities, discuss linguistic profiles, and work with Sarah Genet in her role as psychologist to find weak spots in the team and areas where they could shore each other up during the talks.</p>
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<p>And through it all, hundreds of Odists and Jonases worked behind the scenes to ensure that every potential possibility was summarized and provided to the team through meeting after meeting, presentation after presentation, quiz and questionnaire.</p>
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<p>Every time Codrin thought <em>hey, this is almost like–</em>, ey was brought up short by all of the ways it wasn’t. It was organized and guided, but without the careful precision that ey now knew to be the case for the <em>History</em>. It was hectic and <em>ad hoc</em> but without the spur-of-the-moment surprises that came with <em>Perils</em>.</p>
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<p>Consequently, ey kept finding emself stumbling when presented with a pattern that fit one project and then failed to fit completely.</p>
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<p>At last, though, they had dotted all of the ‘i’s and crossed all the ‘t’s that they could think of and gathered — forks of them gathered, at least — to begin the final preparations.</p>
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<p>At last, though, they had dotted all of the ‘i’s they could find and crossed all the ‘t’s that they could think of and gathered — forks of them gathered, at least — to begin the final preparations.</p>
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<p>The five of them trickled into the boardroom. They’d been told to dress ‘nice, but comfortable’, which didn’t change anything for True Name. Why Ask Questions had dressed in a matching outfit. Tycho had swapped out a plaid flannel shirt for a very plain white one, but remained in his jeans. Sarah had opted for a blouse and slacks that fit well with her middle-aged, mid-career psychologist aesthetic.</p>
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<p>It left Codrin feeling somewhat overdressed for the occasion, but ey shook it off as best ey could. A few years prior, ey’d written a short paper on traditional clothing styles that had been ported into the System, many of which had seen a resurgence, up where cost was no longer a barrier. Ever since, ey’d taken to dressing in various levels of traditional Romanian garb from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and for this project, that meant an embroidered, wide-sleeved blouse and a simple, ankle-length wrap-around skirt, over which was layered a fotă, looking rather like an apron in rich, embroidered red, with a simpler panel of fabric hanging from the back.</p>
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<p>Ey had even braided eir hair. Ah well.</p>
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@ -34,30 +34,31 @@
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<p>She had nodded. “You and Tycho. I’ll get the <em>uchles</em> one.”</p>
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<p><em>“What do I get?”</em></p>
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<p>“There’s no prefix for ‘weirdo’. Sorry, Dear.”</p>
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<p>Ey recited eir greeting when eir turn came, but only form the most automatic portion of emself remaining. The rest was spent thinking about how much ey’d miss eir partners. How much ey’d miss home. </p>
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<p>Ey recited eir greeting when eir turn came, but only from the most automatic portion of emself remaining. The rest was spent thinking about how much ey’d miss eir partners. How much ey’d miss home. </p>
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<p>Jonas ticked a box on his clipboard. “Fork and tag your new instances #Emissary.”</p>
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<p>Codrin and the two Odists doubled up immediately. Sarah Genet took a few seconds, and Tycho apologized profusely, thirty seconds later, when he was finally able to manage the feat.</p>
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<p>Codrin and the two Odists doubled up immediately. Sarah Genet took a few seconds, and Tycho apologized profusely thirty seconds later when he was finally able to manage the feat.</p>
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<p>“I’m still not used to it, sorry.”</p>
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<p>Jonas waved away the comment. “You’re fine, Tycho. Not everyone is True Name.”</p>
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<p>Both instances of the skunk made a rude gesture at him.</p>
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<p>“Yeah, well, fuck you too.” He laughed. “Alright. The rest of the tasks will be specific to each group, so–” He forked, and the new instance continued, “–#Emissaries, with me to Emissary Staging#553a49c. The rest to Artemis Staging#ad89ae3.”</p>
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<p>Ey lingered for a few seconds and thought. One thing this project had that none of the others had had was the feeling of stepping away from home and leaving it behind completely. There would be no coming home for dinner after a day of interviewing or researching. There would be no returning to the tightly controlled chaos that had become the comforting dynamic among eir polycule. Ey stood, watching the others step away, including the other version of emself, and soaked in the sensation of longing.</p>
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<p>When ey stepped through to the DMZ staging sim, ey was greeted by a nearly identical boardroom to the one ey had just stepped away from. There were, ey noted, far more whiteboards lining the walls, not to mention far more Odists and Jonases at work just beyond.</p>
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<p>When ey stepped through to the DMZ staging sim, ey was greeted by a nearly identical boardroom to the one ey had just left. There were, ey noted, far more whiteboards lining the walls, not to mention far more Odists and Jonases at work just beyond.</p>
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<p>“We have an hour,” Jonas said. “So let’s finalize our plans for information gathering.”</p>
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<p>Codrin pulled out a chair at the table and sat between Tycho and Sarah. “Will this be mostly on Tycho?”</p>
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<p>The astronomer shrugged. “We’re the science side, yeah, but we can exchange all the math we’d like without meeting like this. I think it’d be better to say that we’ll be talking about the differences in how we learn and proceed through science. It’ll be good to learn what we can, and I plan on asking a ton of questions, but it’s almost more Sarah’s arena.” He grinned, added, “Don’t get me wrong, though. I’ll still be more in my element than Tycho#Emissary.”</p>
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<p>“Correct,” True Name said. “Tycho will be asking questions on math, physics, and astronomy, Why Ask Questions on biology, and Sarah on language and health, but her other duty will be to observe how they answer and glean the different ways in which they learn and communicate to see how they tick and where our common ground lies.”</p>
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<p>“And I observe.”</p>
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<p>She nodded. “As always, yes, though I do not believe you will need to remain silent. Feel free to ask your own questions.”</p>
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<p>“What do you do?”</p>
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<p>“What will you do?”</p>
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<p>The skunk smiled and lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “What I do best, my dear Codrin. I will guide the lines of questioning, perform risk analysis, and assess lines of control and weakness.”</p>
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<p>Ey had been prepared to make a mental note to pull apart her answer to come up with a way to divine her true intentions, but so honest was her answer that ey was wrong-footed into silence.</p>
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<p>They talked through a few more plans, though there was nothing that they had not already covered on the docket. Another short language quiz. First questions they’d ask. A quick run-down of what textual descriptions of their races they had sent — firstrace seemed to be a sort of flexible synthetic creature equally comfortable on two or four legs, secondrace a relatively short being on two legs covered with a coat of fur, thirdrace what sounded like a sort of lizard, though it wasn’t clear if they walked on two or four legs, with fourthrace sounding surprisingly human.</p>
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<p>They’d been startled by the System’s inability to receive anything but text, so the descriptions had seemed hasty. <em>Something to ask about,</em> Codrin thought.</p>
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<p>All five of the party sat up with a start from a sensorium message, a little thrill of adrenaline, alerting them to the time.</p>
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<p>Codrin was startled at the lack of fanfare that their departure received. The Jonas who had been running the debriefing waved, and none of the others in the room did more than look over their shoulders as they were shunted over to the DMZ and ey was left blinking in the dappled sunlight of the meeting area.</p>
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</article>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2021-12-19</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-01-11</p>
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<p>Arrival and light and noise and a slick, slippery feeling to the air about em.</p>
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<p>Codrin stole a few long seconds with eir eyes squinted shut. The light itself was loud, the noise bright. Everything was just slightly off, just slightly wrong.</p>
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<p>And then, those seconds passed, and the noise was less blinding, and when ey opened eir eyes, ey no longer felt deafened, and ey was able to take in the world around em. The floor, the colonnaded walls, the greenery beyond. Tight-fitting stone, slick and polished.</p>
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<p>Before em stood who ey supposed must be the Artemisian delegation.</p>
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<p>Before em stood what ey supposed must be the Artemisian delegation.</p>
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<p>Turun Ka and Turun Ko, judging by their artificial appearance, stood half again as tall as em. Their flesh, what might have otherwise been skin, was made of what looked to be a supple, rubbery material in gunmetal grey. Powerful thighs supported a stocky torso, and the fact that they were leaned slightly forward was counterbalanced with a thick, lizard-like tail behind them. Their shoulders were sloped and narrow, and ey could see now why they had described themselves as equally comfortable on both two and four legs: their hands were clawed and padded with five fingers and an opposable thumb, but so were their feet.</p>
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<p>Atop a long neck rising from their shoulders sat heads with a distinctly canine bent. They were shaped, in fact, not too dissimilar from Dear’s, though the ears were less outrageously large.</p>
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<p>It was the faces, though, that captivated eir attention. They did not have visible mouths or noses, their ‘muzzles’ instead being covered with a somewhat lighter grey version of that same supple coating. <em>Porous, perhaps?</em> ey thought. <em>To let them smell? I don’t suppose they need to eat. Maybe for speech?</em></p>
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<p>Rather than eyes, there was a mirrored panel of black, looking more mercury than plastic or glass. No visible eyes, no visible expressions.</p>
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<p><em>Well, this will be interesting.</em></p>
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<p>To their right stood on two legs a being of similar shape, though far smaller, coming up only to Codrin’s breastbone. The longer ey looked, however, the more those similarities began to fall away. Yes, it stood on two powerful legs; yes, its body was canted forward and kept on balance with a thick tail; yes, it had an elongated snout.</p>
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<p>However, rather than that supple plastic, it was coated in a scaly hide, washed in oil-sheen colors. Where the firstrace representatives had little in the way of facial features, though, Stolon, ey assumed, almost seemed to have a surfeit. Their eyes were bright and curious, their mouth seemingly ready to a smile — or some other expression, ey reminded emself, as what appeared to be a smile to humans may not be so to secondrace. They did not have hair, as made sense for a lizard, but they did have a crest of what appeared to be feathers of a sort, or perhaps massively elongated scales.</p>
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<p>To their right a being of similar shape stood on two legs, though one far smaller, coming up only to Codrin’s breastbone. The longer ey looked, however, the more those similarities began to fall away. Yes, it stood on two powerful legs; yes, its body was canted forward and kept on balance with a thick tail; yes, it had an elongated snout.</p>
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<p>However, rather than that supple plastic, it was coated in a scaly hide, washed in oil-sheen colors. Where the firstrace representatives had little in the way of facial features, though, Stolon, ey assumed, almost seemed to have a surfeit. Their eyes were bright and curious, their mouth seemingly ready to a smile — or some other expression, ey reminded emself, as what appeared to be a smile to humans may not be so to secondrace. They did not have hair, as made sense for a lizard of some sort, but they did have a crest of what appeared to be feathers of a sort, or perhaps massively elongated scales.</p>
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<p>Beside Stolon and standing a head shorter than even them was a creature that reminded em so much of Debarre that ey did a double-take. The resemblance was uncanny: a svelte coat of brown fur with a creamier white starting beneath the chin and heading down over their front — or at least, ey assumed it continued beneath the thin, blue tunic they were wearing — and a black-tipped tail behind. Plenty of whiskers, curious eyes.</p>
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<p>The last of the Artemisians, Artante Diria, looked almost-but-not-quite human. Her features seemed far smoother, with a nose that melted into her face and earlobes that ramped smoothly down into her neck below. Beyond that, however, the differences were negligible. She could easily get lost in a crowd of humans with no problem whatsoever, another face of Asian descent. She even wore a blue tunic and sarong of nearly identical cut to what ey had worn for so long.</p>
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<p>All five of stood still, expectantly.</p>
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<p>Codrin gripped eir notebook and pen closer to eir chest. “Common…so, the other emissaries are moving at the same time, I’m just moving slower?”</p>
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<p>“Faster. You are existing-in-time faster, thus the other emissaries appear-seem to be moving slower.”</p>
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<p>“How do I get back?”</p>
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<p>The firstrace…member? Firstracer? The firstracer dipped its snout with a twist to the side that gave em the sense of a shrug. “There is no hurry. We exist in synchrony. I will teach you to find common time. I must ask: you are four individuals in five forms in two phenotypes. Are you still five consciousness-bearing systems?”</p>
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<p>The firstrace…member? Firstracer? The firstracer dipped its snout with a twist to the side that gave em the sense of a shrug. “There is no hurry-rush. We exist in synchrony. I will teach-instruct you to find common time. I must ask: you are four individuals in five forms in two phenotypes. Are you still five consciousness-bearing systems?”</p>
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<p>It took em a moments work to disentangle the question before ey realized that Turun Ko was asking about True Name and Why Ask Questions. They were, ey supposed, still closer to being one individual than any two non-cladists.</p>
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<p>“Yes. The Only Time I Know My True Name — or just True Name — and Why Ask Questions Here At…” Ey trailed off, looking at the woman who still appeared to be in mid-shout. The splash of skunk-fur appeared to have crept further up her cheek, though so out-of-phase was she with eir local time that it was hard to say for sure. More, though, something seemed…off about her. She seemed not quite as ey remembered.</p>
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<p>“Recorder Codrin Bălan, please continue.”</p>
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<p>“Will they remain afraid-in-pain? Will they cohere?”</p>
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<p>Codrin was silent for a long moment as ey thought about this. The part of em that wanted to say ‘yes, of course’ argued against the part of em that was intensely focused on that wave of skunk fur creeping its way up over her cheek.</p>
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<p>“I don’t know,” ey said at last. Ey pointed carefully toward that trim of fur. “How long did it take for this to appear?”</p>
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<p>“Zero-point-eight-two seconds common time from your arrival-constitution.” Turun Ko stepped closer, bowing its head to investigate the fur. “She is existing-in-time slower. She appears-seems frozen because she is in slow-time. She departed-slid-away from common time zero-point-one-six seconds after arrival by a factor of negative two-point-six. Think-remember, recorder Codrin Bălan, and you will know these things.”</p>
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<p>“Zero-point-one-eight seconds common time from your arrival-constitution.” Turun Ko stepped closer, bowing its head to investigate the fur. “She is existing-in-time slower. She appears-seems frozen because she is in slow-time. She departed-slid-away from common time zero-point-one-six seconds after arrival by a factor of negative two-point-six. Think-remember, recorder Codrin Bălan, and you will know these things.”</p>
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<p>Ey tilted eir head and then, considering how it felt to have a merge available to remember, tried to remember the factor by which eir experience of time differed from common time. The concepts were hazily defined to em — ey didn’t know what common time was, where the point of reference lay — and yet all the same, ey knew that eir time-skew factor was two-point-one-eight.</p>
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<p>On a spark of intuition, ey tried to ‘remember’ being at a skew of one, and sure enough, the world slid smoothly into movement again, though everything was moving half as fast as ey expected. Sound came through slowly, and ey could hear words beginning — words from Sarah, from Tycho, from Turun Ka. It was unnerving to hear that they had been time-stretched without having their pitch modulated, but ey supposed that would be helpful in time-skewed conversations.</p>
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<p>Ey felt the briefest twinge to eir sensorium and frowned. “What was that?”</p>
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<p>The firstracer bowed, tucking its chin close to its chest. “There is no need to apologize. Allowances are granted to those who arrive from new worlds. Representative Iska will accompany you to discuss further accommodations.” It turned to face the rest of the emissaries. “You all may rest and acclimatize in the rest area we have provided for you. We welcome you.”</p>
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<p>Artante Diria bowed at the waist, a gesture so easy and recognizable that Codrin, Tycho, and Sarah all reciprocated more out of habit than anything. </p>
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<p>“Welcome. You may call me representative Artante Diria. This way, please,” she said, gesturing with a hand.</p>
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<p>Codrin hesitated, watching as something happened to bring Why Ask Questions back into sync with common time. Her shout completed and then turned into a low moan as she crumpled to the ground, retching. For the first time since ey’d met Michelle nearly four decades ago, ey watched the dueling identities of a mind split. Skunk and human battled battled for primacy even as True Name helped her cocladist to her feet.</p>
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<p>Codrin hesitated, watching as something happened to bring Why Ask Questions back into sync with common time. Her shout completed and then turned into a low moan as she crumpled to the ground, retching. For the first time since ey’d met Michelle nearly four decades ago, ey watched the dueling identities of a mind split. Skunk and human battled for primacy even as True Name helped her cocladist to her feet.</p>
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<p>“Where are they taking them?” ey asked once ey’d caught up with Artante and the other emissaries.</p>
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<p>“There are several unison rooms available in the compound. They will be given one as quarters.”</p>
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<p>“I’m guessing those are rooms where time can’t move?” Tycho asked.</p>
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<p>He looked back toward the door, worry painted on his face, and nodded. “I don’t think that was Why Ask Questions. That was Answers Will Not Help.”</p>
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</article>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-01-02</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-01-11</p>
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