Codrin Bălan — 2346

It was in no way surprising that dinner at home was far less stressful than the dinner with the Odists out in Tycho’s observatory. While the conversation throughout the meal had been nothing but pleasant, the food delightful, and the location and single candle a stunning place for a dinner, nonetheless a tension hung above the table at all times. While Sarah had seemed relaxed and True Name and Answers Will Not Help seemed to earnestly enjoy the evening, Tycho had seemed ceaselessly on guard, Dear had seemed to have put on a mask of pleasantness that involved choosing its words most carefully, and Codrin had felt hypervigilant throughout.

This was confirmed when they returned home and the instance of Dear which had accompanied em to the dinner sagged as though exhausted, and then quit. The instance of Dear which had remained behind, when confronted with the onslaught of memories, sighed and simply shook its head. None of the triad seemed at all interested in discussing the dinner.

It was Dear’s partner who had suggested the dinner party for the next night. While they hadn’t explicitly mentioned that it would be a counter to the party the night previous, it was certainly implied. Something to cleanse their palates, as well as have further time for Codrin, Tycho, and Sarah to interact before they were to go on their journey. All three — four, including Dear — had immediately agreed.

So it was that they sat around the table, there in the modern house on the prairie, sharing coffee and desserts and pleasant, easy conversation.

“So,” Sarah said, leaning back in her chair. “I was thinking about the fact that we seem to have wound up with jobs. Like, honest-to-goodness go-to-work-for-the-day jobs. What did you do before this? You all know that I was a psychologist before I uploaded. I still am, I guess. Dear, you did theatre, right?”

The fox nodded. “Michelle was a high-school theatre teacher. I suppose you can see why it is that we are so dramatic.”

She laughed. “Well, alright. Some things carry through even two hundred years later, I guess.”

“Nearly two hundred fifty, yes. I would complain about being old, but when one is functionally immortal, bitching loses its savor.”

“You bitch plenty, Dear,” its partner said.

“Yes, but how often do I bitch about my age?”

Codrin shrugged. “You bitch about immortality a lot. Does that count?”

The fox grinned. “It does not, my love.”

Still laughing, Tycho spoke up next. “It’s probably no surprise that I was an astronomer on Earth as well.”

“How’d that even work?” Sarah asked. “When I was there, we could barely see any stars.”

“All space-based stuff. Besides, radio telescopes don’t need quite so dark of skies. Amateur astronomers were the hardest hit. They often had to drive way the hell up into the mountains, and even then, wait for winter when logging season was over. I taught a few classes out there and volunteered at a dark-sky site.”

“That makes your sim make an awful lot more sense.”

He nodded proudly. “The landscape is based off one of those dark-sky sites.”

Eyes turned to Codrin, who shrugged. “I went to school, then a year of a history degree at university before I uploaded to help my little brother out after my parents died. I never really had a job, just interests that got all the stronger once I got here.”

“Had you needed to get a job while down there, what would it have been?” Dear asked. “I have a guess, but I want to see how close I am.”

Codrin picked up eir coffee mug and leaned back against eir chair, thinking. “I wanted to be a librarian quite badly. History was a secondary interest. I planned on getting a bachelor’s in something like history or English and then a master’s degree in library science.”

Dear tilted its head. “I was close on the bachelor’s but was not expecting the master’s. What drew you to that?”

“Books.”

Eir partners both laughed.

“What other answer could I possibly give?” ey said, grinning. “I like books. I like knowledge. I like having it all collected in one place, even if books were falling out of fashion back when I was phys-side.”

“A horrible shame. I do not have the same attraction to them that you do, my dear, but they are still delightful.”

“You take it to almost a fetishistic level, Codrin,” eir other partner said. “For which we love you, of course.”

Ey rolled eir eyes. “Domestic abuse, I say. Let me turn it back on you, though, what did you do?”

They heaved a deep sigh. “Line cook at a diner.”

“Is that why you’re so into cooking?”

“Basically. I wanted to be a cook, but you kind of need to start at the bottom and work your way up. I just gave up on actually doing that and uploaded instead.”

“I had a similar job in school, actually.” Tycho said. “Nothing fancy but I–“

He trailed off, staring up into space with a blank expression, then shook his head. “Uh, how willing are you all to talk about the Artemisians?”

Shrugs all around.

“Uh, sorry,” he said, pausing a moment longer, and then sitting up straighter when a few folded sheets of notebook paper slid down to the table in front of him, neatly missing both coffee and half-eaten tiramisu. “Tycho#Artemis sent a list of questions to the Artemisians today. I think they weren’t expecting the reply to come for a day or two, but it showed up after only five minutes, minus transit.”

“What sort of questions are we talking about?”

“Social and cultural, it looks like. Nothing really scientific. Want me to go through them?”

They all nodded.

“Alright. He asked when each of the races joined and the answer sounds complicated. It looks like about a thousand years or so between each.”

“So they started about four thousand years ago?”

He shrugged. “There are specific numbers. They add up to…five thousand, three hundred twelve years ago.”

“Holy shit,” Dear’s partner said. “Think they’re batty?”

Dear laughed. “It depends on how sane they were before they started and how their system is structured. Probably, though.”

“Well, I guess we’ll find out soon enough. Let’s see…there were a few questions about how the races interact. It sounds like they have several common areas available, but there are still enclaves of the different races that mostly keep to themselves. Apparently most speak secondrace’s primary language because firstrace was…uh, hmm. They say electronic. I’m not sure what that means. Maybe they were robots of some sort? AIs? They didn’t need to talk with words. All races except firstrace still have several different languages of their own which I suppose they speak at home and in their own sims.”

Codrin nodded. Ey had summoned a pen and notebook and was already taking notes. “Will they be teaching us any of them?”

“He said he’s already learning the secondrace language. Maybe you should, too.”

Ey scribbled down a note to emself to ping True Name for access.

Sarah was leaning forward on her elbows, looking particularly interested. “I would like to as well. One can learn an awful lot about a person or group based on the language they speak.”

Codrin amended the note to include her name. “I’ll have True Name send it our way.”

Tycho shrugged. “I’m not going to bother. If #Artemis is able to merge back, I’ll pick it up then. I’ll make sure he does it before he leaves.”

“Good idea, yeah. The more who speak it the better, just to be safe.”

“Alright. Next set of questions were about forking.”

There were a few blips of other foxes behind Dear, startling Tycho.

“Apologies, Tycho,” it said, grinning widely, tail whipping about behind it. “I may not be joining directly in the endeavor, but I am intensely curious to hear about this.”

“Well, alright. I hate to disappoint, but it sounds like the only times they fork are in an emergency or during a contact like this. They have to petition some sort of central leadership called, of all things, the Council of Eight to create any long-running forks.”

The fox flinched back as though slapped, its ears canted back and its brow furrowed.

“They provided additional information, though. They say that fourthrace had the same concept of forking that we appear to, so they understand our questions around dissolution strategies and clade structures. #Artemis also asked about their naming system, and apparently Turun Ka and Turun Ko are from something akin to a clade that existed before the voyage began. Something from when they were electronic but not on their system. Instead, they seem to have individual, fine-grained control over time. This is how they responded so quickly, apparently, they slowed time way down so that they had as much as they wanted to write their response. They ask if this will be accommodated during the talks and there’s a note from True Name here saying that, even if it were possible, she’s going to answer no. Tycho said she looked upset.”

“Unpleasant business,” Dear muttered darkly. “Unpleasant to an extreme.”

“Well, what’s the next question, then?” Codrin asked. Whether it was the mention of the Council of Eight or the news about forking, ey couldn’t guess, but the fox was clearly upset as well. “Perhaps we can move away from this one.”

“Next, they asked about leisure activities. It sounds like they’re fairly similar to us in that very few people have actual jobs, but several have what they call ‘intensive leisure activities, such as scientist or author’. He asked if they have stories and if so, what kind, and their answer goes on quite extensively.”

Codrin scribbled hastily to take down the question. “Can you ensure that I get a copy of the responses, too?”

“Perhaps we all should get a copy,” Sarah suggested. “I’m curious about the language bits and this thing about stories.”

“As am I. If True Name allows, I will ask for a copy as well.”

“Me too,” its partner said.

“Can you give us an overview of their answers?” Codrin asked.

“Sure,” Tycho said slowly, skimming through the rest of the page and onto the next. “They say that stories are of the utmost importance to all races, that there is no limitation what kind, or who may tell them, but that, quote, “of the occupations that many hold, that of storyteller is the one held in highest regard.”“

Dear brightened considerably. “I will forgive them their atrocious naming choice for their leadership, then. They do sound interesting aside from that.”

“I’ll admit to being mostly confused about it, or at least more focused on the astronomers they have on board, but it’s all still interesting.” He flipped over to the last page and frowned. He sat silent for several seconds as he stared at the paper, as though willing further meaning to rise from it. “I’ll quote the last bit in its entirety. #Artemis asked, “Do you dream?” There’s no further questions or explanation.”

If Sarah had been interested before, she was nearly staring holes into Tycho now. “What was their answer?”

“”You have asked the correct question. We are eager to meet you.” Verbatim. That’s it.”

A silence fell over the table while they digested this, each in their own way.

Codrin sipped eir coffee while ey thought. The correct question made it sound as though they had reached some sort of milestone, perhaps, especially when taken with we are eager to meet you. It made it sound as though they’d completed a mission by asking that.

And yet, there wasn’t an answer to the question given, if Tycho was right about the message. They didn’t say yes or no, they didn’t say what about. They simply seemed to be smiling through the page, and ey couldn’t tell whether that smile was one of satisfaction, encouragement, or pride.

It was Dear who broke the long silence. “Is there anything else to the message?”

Tycho shook his head. “Nothing from the Artemisians, no, but #Artemis has added a note here that he asked that because he’s been dreaming about them every night.” He paused for a moment before adding, “I have too. The dreams aren’t like the ones he describes, but just this feeling that someone is coming and that it will be this momentous thing and we have to be as ready as we can be.”

Sarah nodded. “There’s no real interpretation to dreams other than they can reflect some of what you were thinking during the day. It sounds like you’re both quite focused on it. Anxious, perhaps.”

Tycho nodded eagerly in agreement.

“That makes sense,” Codrin said. “I had a dream about them last night, too. It was just this vague idea that I knew they were coming and that I needed to be observant.”

“That makes sense, given your role,” she said. “I haven’t been remembering my dreams since we got the news. I don’t think I’ve been sleeping very well.”

After their guests had left and the trio sat down on the couch for a bit before bed, Dear dotted its nose against Codrin’s cheek. “My dear, I do not want to talk about it now, but I have some thing to tell you about this business with time modulation that may prove useful to you.”

Ey nodded, feeling the fox’s nose tip still lingering near eir cheek. “I’ll look forward to it, Dear. At your own pace.”

“It is nothing bad. Just stressful, and I do not yet know how to put it into words. I will say that this will impact all Odists in approximately the same way, though, which is why you should know if there are to be two of them joining you.”