Dream d1176-s: Light on Seven Walls

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where I stood at the settlement's outer edge and turned to look back at what we had built.

The beacon pulsed at the center, sending its measured light outward in slow, even rings. From where I stood I could see all of it at once: the relay beacon on the distant ridge, a steady red point against the washed-out sky; the projection pavilion with its angled roof; the library reading room where someone had propped open the door; the signal room with its aerial mast; the broadcast station; the forecasting tower with its rotating instruments.

Lano sat beside me in the coarse grass at the edge, nose lifted into the wind that moved through the stripped towers. Her ears perked forward, reading something I couldn't.

The Builder was on scaffolding at the far corner of the pavilion, fitting a new panel into the wall. I could hear the tap of it from where I stood, patient and methodical. The Beacon Network Specialist moved along the ridge path with her equipment case, checking the relay's anchor points the way she did every morning.

In the signal room window I could see the Wire Man bent over the telegraph table. A faint rhythm of dots came through the air. Outgoing or incoming, I couldn't tell. The Philosopher had arranged her books in a crate outside the library door and was holding one flat against the wall to catch the morning light. She read standing up, always.

The Listener had the broadcast station's side panel open. She was replacing something, checking resistance with a handheld meter. The Weather Reader climbed the forecasting tower steps without looking down, carrying a paper chart folded under one arm.

The Dreamer was not visible, which usually meant she was inside somewhere, thinking.

Lano trotted along the settlement's outer path, moving from structure to structure in a loose arc. She paused at the library corner and sniffed the stacked crates. She circled the forecasting tower's base. At the signal room door she sat, ears up.

"Sigues," she said.

I followed her.

The beacon pulsed again. Its light moved through the settlement in a wave, catching the panels of each building in sequence, pavilion, library, signal room, broadcast station, tower, as if checking them off a list. The ridge relay answered with a single blink.

The sky above the stripped towers carried that post-collapse color I had come to know: not exactly dawn, not exactly overcast, but something lit from the side, low and honest. In it the settlement did not look temporary. It looked like something that had decided to stay.

I walked the outer path behind Lano, touching the wall of each structure as I passed.