Dream d1146-s: Rain in the Cable Runs

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the sky changed before anything else did. I was standing in the network junction clearing when the Weather Reader stepped out of the forecasting tower with both arms raised, pointing not at anything in particular but at the whole horizon, which had turned the color of old copper. I had not seen that color here before.

The wind arrived in a single gust that bent the antenna masts sideways. Not slowly. Sideways, in one motion, and I watched the topmost relay dish swing to its cable limit and hang there. The Beacon Network Specialist was already moving toward the base of the nearest mast, hand on the guide wire, calling back something I could not hear over the sound.

Lano had been at my feet. I looked down and found the small white dog rigid, ears flat against her skull, nose pointed at the treeline where the wind was coming from. She barked once. Short. A warning with no ambiguity in it.

"Tormenta," Lano said.

Then the rain.

It came horizontally, not down, and the cable trenches on the east side of the clearing filled within minutes. I could see the Weather Reader and the Wire Man working along the nearest trench, pulling cable bundles up out of the flooding channels, hands moving fast. The Philosopher had his notebook closed under one arm and was helping them, not speaking, just working.

The beacon at center pulsed on. That steadiness was something.

The Builder appeared from the direction of the broadcast station with rope and a canvas roll. He did not shout. He pointed at the mast base and at the projection pavilion and two of us went with him. I did not think about it. I just went.

The generator running the signal room flickered. I heard it from across the clearing. The pulse changed pitch, then steadied, then flickered again. The Listener was inside. A lantern came on through the window.

The white crane was not visible. I looked for it and found only low cloud and rain coming sideways and the masts shaking.

We had built all of this over weeks. The relay lines, the trenches, the pavilion's roof joists, the cables running between structures. Now the rain was in the trenches and the masts were bending and the generator was uncertain and I did not know yet what it would cost.

Lano stayed close, pressed against my leg, ears still flat.

The beacon pulsed. The settlement held what it could. The storm was not finished.