update from sparkleup
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Madison Scott-Clary
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<h1 id="ioan-balan-2346">Ioan Bălan — 2346</h1>
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<div class="codehilite"><pre><span></span><code><span class="err">Convergence T-14 days, 2 hours, 7 minutes (transmission delay: 7.23 days)</span>
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</code></pre></div>
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<p>“I never wanted this. I never wanted any of this!” the skunk shouted, stamping her foot and jabbing her finger toward em. “You talk about how much I mean to you, how much this place means, and then what? Nothing ever comes of it.”</p>
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<p>“What the hell <em>is</em> supposed to come of it?” Ey stood quickly enough to knock the chair back onto the ground, all but lunging toward her. She stood easily a head shorter than em, but, having decided that this wasn’t menacing enough, ey forked two times in quick succession, three of em stomping toward her.</p>
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<p>Rather than quail under the onslaught or simply run away, she stood up straighter, arms crossed, her round face proud and defiant. “Really? Are you really sure that you need this to make your point?”</p>
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<p>“And it is our job as Odists to fuck with you until you break out of it. I have faith in em, just as I had faith in you.” She slid the paper back across the table to em. “You just need to pass that on.”</p>
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</article>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-01-03</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-01-16</p>
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</footer>
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</code></pre></div>
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<p>The dream repeated each night.</p>
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<p>And as before, the hallway continued however many miles dream-logic determined it must, and as before, he kept walking down it, kept walking and walking and walking, right hand always trailing along the wall. That wall was of smooth stone, something coarser than marble and smoother than concrete, and as he felt it play out beneath his fingers, he heard the voices ahead of him.</p>
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<p>And there was a room, there ahead of him. He could see the light spilling into the comparatively dim hallway. Sunlight, cool and bright. He could see that the left-hand wall of the hallway continued. A corner, then, the hallway dumping him out into the southeast corner of the room. Southeast…how did he know that?</p>
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<p>And there on that wall, shadows played. Shadows of leaves, the arc of a fountain.</p>
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<p>As always, the hallway continued however many miles dream-logic determined it must, and as before, he kept walking down it, kept walking and walking and walking, right hand always trailing along the wall. That wall was of smooth stone, something coarser than marble and smoother than concrete, and as he felt it play out beneath his fingers, he heard the voices ahead of him.</p>
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<p>There was a room, there ahead of him. He could see the light spilling into the comparatively dim hallway. Sunlight, cool and bright. He could see that the left-hand wall of the hallway continued. A corner, then, the hallway dumping him out into the southeast corner of the room. Southeast…how did he know that?</p>
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<p>There on that wall, shadows played. Shadows of leaves, the arc of a fountain.</p>
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<p>And in that room, that soft rush of water only served to muffle the voices of so many others. They had to be the Artemisians. They had to be. But the water was just loud enough, added just enough white noise, that he could pick out no singular detail. There were fricatives. There were plosives. There were ejectives.</p>
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<p>And the harder he listened, the more details he almost-but-not-quite heard. First there was the sound of a masculine voice, and then the sound of something more feminine. First there was the careful modulation of some machine-produced voice, then the mellifluous tones of something undeniably organic.</p>
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<p>And he wasn’t supposed to be there. He was supposed to be somewhere else. He wasn’t allowed. He wasn’t permitted. He was supposed to be somewhere different, not creeping along the unending right-hand wall of the hallway, straining to hear yet more detail from a group of incomprehensible others.</p>
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<p>And then he turned the corner.</p>
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<p>And then he was blinded by the sun.</p>
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<p>And then he awoke, the lights of the room staring down at him reprovingly.</p>
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<p>The dream seemed determined always to cling to him, as it had the day before and the day before that, and even as he showered and dressed, even after True Name once more met him at his door and handed him his coffee, he tried as hard as he could to remember even the smallest detail of those voices.</p>
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<p>The dream always seemed determined to cling to him, as it had the day before and the day before that, and even as he showered and dressed, even after True Name once more met him at his door and handed him his coffee, he tried as hard as he could to remember even the smallest detail of those voices.</p>
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<p>“You seem distracted today,” the skunk observed. “Not just tired. What is on your mind?”</p>
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<p>He jolted to awareness and smiled sheepishly to her. “Uh, just a dream sticking with me from last night. Second night in a row I’ve dreamed about them.”</p>
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<p>He jolted to awareness and smiled sheepishly to her. “Uh, just a dream sticking with me from last night. Third night in a row I’ve dreamed about them.”</p>
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<p>“The Artemisians?”</p>
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<p>He nodded. “Just like I can hear them talking, but not any details about them. I can hear <em>that</em> they’re talking, I guess. I keep trying to learn more and then waking up.”</p>
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<p>True Name smiled. “I know the feeling, yes. It is that desire to know more, yet having it kept from you. Are you dreaming in their language or in English?”</p>
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<p>“Tycho would like to take a few hours to work on a message to the Artemisians. Are you alright with that?”</p>
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<p>The woman laughed and nodded. “Oh, by all means. We will get by without him for a bit. See you at lunch, Dr. Brahe?”</p>
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<p>He nodded.</p>
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<p>After a moment, another woman showed up, looking almost identical to Answers Will Not Help. Perhaps a long-lived fork, though the ebullience was toned down somewhat. Still the same grin — but kinder. Still the casual dress — but more weekend oriented. “Tycho Brahe, yes? True Name says I will be helping you out on this writing a letter.”</p>
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<p>After a minute or two, another woman stepped into the sim, looking almost-but-not-quite identical to Answers Will Not Help. Perhaps a long-lived fork, though the ebullience was toned down somewhat. Still the same grin — but kinder. Still the casual dress — but more of a weekend outfit. “Tycho Brahe, yes? True Name says I will be helping you out on writing a letter.”</p>
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<p>“Oh, uh,” he frowned. “I guess so. Answers Will Not Help?”</p>
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<p>She waved her hand in a non-answer, instead beckoning him over to another door along the wall. “Come on. Let us get this going. I am excited to hear what you come up with.”</p>
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<p>True Name raised her coffee cup to him and smile. “Good luck, Tycho. Do keep in touch.”</p>
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<p>Once they’d made it into the office — much smaller than the conference room where he’d initially met Sovanna and Dr. Verda.</p>
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<p>They sat on opposite sides of a desk, where the woman swiped into existence two notepads and two pens. “Alright, so I have been told that you had a dream. Tell me about this.”</p>
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<p>The office was much smaller than the conference room where he’d initially met Sovanna and Dr. Verda.</p>
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<p>They sat on opposite sides of a desk, where the Odist swiped into existence two notepads and two pens. “Alright, so I have been told that you had a dream. Tell me about it.”</p>
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<p>As he did, she jotted down details on her own notepads, occasionally asking him questions — did he remember what the air smelled like? Were there human voices as well? Why were you anxious about being found out? — and though it felt silly at first, he realized that she had teased out greater details of what it was that his dreaming mind was curious about.</p>
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<p>“Alright,” she said. “Let us come up with five questions out of this. They seem to like the number five.”</p>
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<p>“I think we have <em>how often do the four races interact?</em> already. If you think that we can do one paragraph per question, perhaps we can ask about whether there are common areas that have a <em>lingua franca</em>, too.”</p>
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<p>He blinked, tilting his head. “Are you sure?”</p>
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<p>“Of course I fucking am,” she said, grinning widely. “I am the politician, you are the nerd. Now, let us hammer out some answers to these questions for ourselves that we can send. Answers to the first four, I mean. We will not answer “Do you dream?” for ourselves.”</p>
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<p>Tycho stopped himself from asking why, realizing she would likely answer in the same way. “Alright, then. This is fun, thanks for giving me the chance to work on it.”</p>
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<p>“Of course, of course.” she giggled leaning across the table to ruffle his thinning hair. “You fucking taskers, you need breaks, too.”</p>
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<p>He laughed, struggling to re-comb his hair with only his fingers, once more surprised at just how comfortable she made him feel. He liked her, whoever she was.</p>
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<p>“Of course, of course.” she giggled leaning across the table to ruffle his graying hair. “You fucking taskers, you need breaks, too.”</p>
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<p>He laughed, struggling to re-comb his hair with only his fingers. Once more surprised at just how comfortable she made him feel. He liked her, whoever she was.</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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