update from sparkleup
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<p>“Really? Ey gave an actual announcement?” May giggled, giving eir hand a squeeze in her paw. “You are such fucking nerds.”</p>
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<p>“That’s nerdy even for me, I think.”</p>
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<p>“Would it have been nerdy for the Ioan of twenty years ago? Or forty?”</p>
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<p>“Forty?” Ey frowned up to the sky. “Good question. I don’t think so. Ey was nerdier then than even Codrin is now.”</p>
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<p>“Forty?” Ey frowned up to the sky. “Good question. I don’t think so. That Ioan was nerdier then than even Codrin is now.”</p>
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<p>“Makes me think that Codrin#Pollux was right about em,” she said. “Ey had changed the least out of the three of you. Not that it was a bad thing, except in that it led to eir crisis of identity over the last few weeks.”</p>
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<p>“The whole of Castor seems to have been the most conservative of the three Systems. Codrin, Dear, and even True Name hadn’t changed much at all from what they were like closer to Launch.”</p>
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<p>The silence that followed started out tense, then eased into something more deliberate, though ey couldn’t put to words how ey could tell.</p>
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<p>Ey nodded. “Well, alright. To be honest, pretty awful. Much of the clade has dropped all relation to her; In Dreams didn’t tell her about the therapy thing at all, so I had to tell her about it and suggest she contact Sarah directly. Plus, from what I can guess, she and Jonas aren’t getting along nearly so well anymore. I wouldn’t be surprised if she drops out of the whole guidance business entirely — or is pushed out by Jonas — in the next few years, though they seem to have the response to the convergence pretty well in check.”</p>
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<p>The smile that May had picked up quickly disappeared and by the time ey finished, she was actively frowning. “It was not my intention to have her left behind. She needs this as much as the rest of us do.”</p>
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<p>“I know, May, it’s not on you.”</p>
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<p>“I am trying to internalize that, my dear. My empathy remains, even if the emotion behind it has transmuted. Empathy <em>and</em> sympathy, as I am sorry that In Dreams left her behind.” After a pause, she added, almost to herself, “I can feel for her, even if I do resent her.”</p>
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<p>“I am trying to internalize that, my dear. My empathy remains, even if the emotion behind it has transmuted. Empathy <em>and</em> sympathy, as I am sorry that In Dreams left her behind. I can still feel for her, even if I do resent her.” After a pause, she added, almost to herself, “I do not like that I hate her, but I am helpless before that feeling.”</p>
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<p>Ioan leaned over enough to give her a kiss to the cheek. “You’re a good person, May.”</p>
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<p>She surprised em by turning her head to give the very tip of eir nose a rather wet lick. “I am an utter nightmare and you know it, my dear.”</p>
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<p>“You can be both,” ey said, laughing. “Even skunks can contain multitudes.”</p>
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<p>“I’ll have to start digging through etymologies for a good one.”</p>
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<p>“I swear to God, Ioan, you are a parody of yourself. Every time I think you cannot get nerdier, you one-up yourself.”</p>
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<p>Ey laughed. “Love you too, May.”</p>
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<p>After a luxuriously long stretch, May rolled onto her front, resting her cheek on folded arms. This seemed like a good idea, given the ache starting in eir back from laying on a rock for too long, so ey followed suit, and they both settled into quiet, enjoying the sun on their backs and the sound of small waves breaking over pebbles below, of the stream not too far in the distance.</p>
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<p>After a luxuriously long stretch, the skunk rolled onto her front, resting her cheek on folded arms. This seemed like a good idea, given the ache starting in eir back from laying on a rock for too long, so ey followed suit, and they both settled into quiet, enjoying the sun on their backs and the sound of small waves breaking over pebbles below, of the stream not too far in the distance.</p>
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<p>Ey could feel the doziness of a nice picnic and warm sun beckoning em to nap, but ey knew that ey’d wake up a pile of aches and pains if ey slept like this.</p>
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<p>“Tell me a story, May.”</p>
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<p>“Mm?” The skunk sounded sleepy as well. “Okay. How true would you like it?”</p>
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<p>“As true as you’d like,” ey said, laughing. “Do you have another myth you could share?”</p>
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<p>“When the second people met the first,” she said after a long pause. “They found them strange and different. The way they thought, the way they lived their lives, all of it was strange to them. When the first people looked out on the world, they saw something different than what they did. They saw more, perhaps, or perhaps they saw it more vividly. None could say.</p>
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<p>“As true as you’d like,” ey said. “Do you have another myth you could share?”</p>
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<p>“When the second people met the first,” she said after a long pause. “They found them strange and otherworldly. The way they thought, the way they lived their lives, all of it was strange to them. When the first people looked out on the world, they saw something different than what they themselves did. They saw more, perhaps, or perhaps they saw it more vividly. None could say.</p>
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<p>“The second people did not know their own origins, and so they invented story after story to explain where they came from, and through countless years, first one story would take root and flourish, and all would believe that they had come from dust with the breath of life blown into them by a distant God, and then that story would fade and they would all believe that random chance and unchecked chaos brought together the right elements in the right way, the right conditions crushing them into the very beginnings of life.”</p>
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<p>Ioan watched as the skunk spoke. Ey was never sure how much of her stories were made up on the spot, were composed from existing ideas, or had been long rehearsed. All the same, it was entrancing watching her speak, that far-away look in her eyes as though she were seeing the story rather than the mountains or the lake.</p>
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<p>“When the second people met the first, their stories collapsed around them like castles made in sand, as they realized that they were not the first, that they were not alone, or original, or unique, for did the first people not exist long before them? Did they not look out on younger skies?</p>
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<p>The skunk grinned, dotting her nose to eirs. “I do not see how they could not, my dear. Is that not what exploration is?”</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-01-20</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-02-13</p>
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<p>Those gathered laughed.</p>
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<p>They’d claimed a portion of the plaza for his last dinner, setting up a long table not too dissimilar from that which they’d sat at for the conference. He had sat at one end, and at the other True Name sat, smiling and watching him rise for his speech. To his right sat Codrin and eir two partners, both of whom had spent much of the evening conversing with each other and the few scientists who sat to his left and the Artemisians beyond. He’d not missed the fact that they seemed to be ignoring the other three Odists as best they could other than to accept praise for the food they’d cooked for the occasion.</p>
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<p>Those scientists included Dr. Verda and several of his other colleagues who had served as on-duty astronomer for Castor throughout the long years.</p>
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<p>Beyond them, to either side of the table, sat a gaggle of Artemisians. Both Turun Ka and Turun Ko were there, despite not partaking in the meal. Stolon and Iska sat across from them and had both tried the various dishes to greater or lesser success. Artante sat next to them across from Sarah Genet, and they had spent much of the meal talking with the quiet, earnest professionalism of those who shared therapeutic psychology as an interest.</p>
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<p>Beyond them, to either side of the table, sat a gaggle of Artemisians. Both Turun Ka and Turun Ko were there, despite not partaking in the meal. Stolon and Iska sat across from them and had both tried the various dishes to greater or lesser success. Artante Diria sat next to them across from Sarah Genet, and they had spent much of the meal talking with the quiet earnestness of those who shared a profession.</p>
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<p>Beyond them, Sovanna sat across from Answers Will Not Help — a move that surely must have been intentional — and beside Jonas. Across from Jonas, Why Ask Questions sat beside the final guest, True Name.</p>
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<p>The dinner had been his idea, and the speech True Name’s. He’d balked at it originally, but in the end, she’d won out, convincing him that if he was headed to a place where he could forget, making his last moments on Castor memorable should be a priority.</p>
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<p>Luckily, for all his nerves, he’d always done well at giving talks at conferences, and the two and a half glasses of wine he’d already had certainly helped.</p>
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<p>“It wasn’t until I realized that this would be something of a eulogy that I started getting ideas on what to talk about. I talked with Dear about it and it laughed and told me about some thoughts that it had around Launch. I didn’t know any of them then, but apparently it and its partners had a Death Day party, and that’s kind of what this is, isn’t it? I’m dying to many of you, only to haunt you from beyond the grave with vague pronouncements about the heavens for a little while.</p>
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<p>“Once I started thinking of it that way, I was able to come up with some better words for tonight, some of which I’ll blame True Name for.”</p>
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<p>The skunk raised her glass to him.</p>
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<p>“When we first heard from the Artemisians, True Name met me at my sim and quoted a snippet of poetry by Sarah Williams to me: reach me down my Tycho Brahe,—I would know him when we meet, When I share my later science, sitting humbly at his feet; He may know the law of all things, yet be ignorant of how We are working to completion, working on from then till now.</p>
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<p>“See, Tycho Brahe is a name I picked for myself twenty years ago when Codrin interviewed me for the <em>History</em>. Brahe was an astronomer who was born eight hundred years ago this year. A lot of his science was bunk, but that’s what the poem says, isn’t it? He may know the law of all things, but we’re the ones with the later science.</p>
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<p>“When we first heard from the Artemisians, True Name met me at my sim and quoted a snippet of poetry by Sarah Williams: reach me down my Tycho Brahe,—I would know him when we meet, When I share my later science, sitting humbly at his feet; He may know the law of all things, yet be ignorant of how We are working to completion, working on from then till now.</p>
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<p>“See, Tycho Brahe is a name I picked for myself twenty years ago when Codrin interviewed me for the <em>History</em>. Brahe was an astronomer born eight hundred years ago this year. A lot of his science was bunk, but that’s what the poem says, isn’t it? He may know the law of all things, but we’re the ones with the later science.</p>
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<p>“That stanza was quoted to me as a way of suggesting that we will learn from the later science of the Artemisians, and perhaps we’ll have something to teach them as well, but also, as True Name noted, it’s a poem about death, telling the final words of an astronomer to his pupil.”</p>
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<p>The mood had settled into somber, present, and while most eyes were dry, he could tell there was still sadness in there.</p>
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<p>“I won’t quote the whole thing, since it’s quite long, but there’s a few bits that I’d like to share with you before I leave.</p>
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<p>“There has been a something wanting in my nature until now; I can dimly comprehend it,—that I might have been more kind, Might have cherished you more wisely, as the one I leave behind.</p>
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<p>“Perhaps I should have cherished you all more while I was here. I really don’t know. It’s not in my nature to cherish people, for better or worse, but maybe I should have cherished my time here on Castor, or even back on Legrange, more than I did. It was still home, wasn’t it? I lived here. I loved what I did. “What, for us,” Williams writes. “Are all distractions of men’s fellowship and smiles? What, for us, the goddess Pleasure, with her meretricious wiles?” Pleasure came second, and the fallout of that is what I was fundamentally unhappy, and thus perhaps unable to cherish.</p>
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<p>“Perhaps I should have cherished you all more while I was here. I really don’t know. It’s not in my nature to cherish people, for better or worse, but maybe I should have cherished my time here on Castor, or even back on Legrange, more than I did. It was still home, wasn’t it? I lived here. I loved what I did. “What, for us,” Williams writes. “Are all distractions of men’s fellowship and smiles? What, for us, the goddess Pleasure, with her meretricious wiles?” Pleasure came second, and the fallout of that is that I was fundamentally unhappy, and thus perhaps unable to cherish.</p>
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<p>“That’s not to say that I won’t miss you all. Some of you are up on Artemis already, and some more may join in these last few days before the Ansible shuts down, but no matter what, I <em>will</em> miss you all.</p>
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<p>“It’s just that, as the poem says, “I have sown, like Tycho Brahe, that a greater man may reap; But if none should do my reaping, ‘twill disturb me in my sleep.” I’m headed off to newer places, to learn the later sciences at the feet of those who have been traveling for so long. I’ve done my work, though I’ve left it incomplete. Many of you will have much to work on to complete it. You must!</p>
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<p>“In fact, I think the only thing I’m leaving behind that is well and truly finished to my liking is my sim, and even then, it sounds like perisystem engineers are working on getting visual transmission piped in.”</p>
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<p>There were some smiles around the table, but no laughter. All were focused entirely on him, and he had to force down a wave of embarrassment at his speech.</p>
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<p>“I only have one more snippet of poetry to leave you with, and it will be my goodbye. It’ll be the last thing I say on Castor, and trust me when I say that those words made me dizzy the first time I thought of them. ‘Last thing I say on Castor’. I’ll cease being here. I’ll cease being among a place that is all — or, now, a majority — my own species. I’ll cease being on anything made around our own dear Sun.</p>
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<p>“I only have one more snippet of poetry to leave you with, and it will be my goodbye. It was the last thing I said on Earth, it’ll be the last thing I say on Castor, and trust me when I say that those words made me dizzy the first time I thought of them. ‘Last thing I say on Castor’. I’ll cease being here. I’ll cease being among a place that is all — or, now, a majority — my own species. I’ll cease being on anything made around our own dear Sun.</p>
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<p>“I could draw out such a goodbye, but I won’t. Not more than I already have. You’ll have your memories, won’t you?”</p>
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<p>He lifted his half-full glass of wine to the sky and, even as the other members of the dinner began to lift theirs, downed it in two coarse swallows. “Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light. I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.”</p>
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<p>Perhaps they toasted to him. Perhaps they said goodbye to him, calling out. Perhaps some of them did cry, as he knew he would if he stayed any longer.</p>
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<p>“<em>Anem.</em> It is finished.”</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-02-05</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-02-13</p>
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