Dream d1208-s: Uncharted Carrier

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where I was sitting in the server alcove of an old ruin, the wall behind me rough concrete, the rack frames above stripped to what was essential. Through the broken window the settlement spread: beacon light at center, slow and steady, the rhythm I had learned to read the way you read a heartbeat. The Builder was in the eastern structure. I could hear the knock of framing through the floor.

Lano was curled against my left boot when it happened.

The Beacon Network Specialist came through the low doorway at a pace that wasn't running but wasn't walking either. She had a waveform strip in her hand. She set it flat on the server shelf and pointed to it without speaking.

I looked at it. Long pause. The shape didn't match anything in the registry.

"When did it start?" I asked.

"Four minutes ago. Still active."

The Listener was already at the signal room. The Wire Man had patched the feed to the broadcast station so everyone could hear it. We gathered. The Philosopher stood at the edge of the alcove. The Dreamer was just behind him. The signal came through the small speaker as a low, modulated hum, steady at intervals we didn't recognize, carrying something that might have been structure, might have been noise. The origin indicator pointed to nothing registered.

Lano lifted her head. Her ears went flat against her skull, not sleepy-flat but tight-flat, pressed forward and down. She rose to her feet without being asked, stood very still beside my boot, and barked once. Short, hard, final. Then, almost under the sound: "Alerta."

Nobody spoke.

The Beacon Network Specialist pulled up the node map on the wall screen. Every known relay, every registered pulse source, every documented repeater in the network. She traced the signal's bearing slowly with one finger.

Nothing matched.

The Weather Reader came down from the forecasting tower and walked straight to us without stopping, her notebook already open. "I've been watching the horizon instruments for two hours," she said. "No atmospheric event accounts for this. The pattern is deliberate."

The word sat in the alcove. Deliberate.

I looked at the waveform strip again. Regularity meant intent. Reach meant power. No name in our records meant something beyond the edge of our map.

The Philosopher finally spoke. "Investigate or ignore."

No one answered. Outside, the beacon at center kept its slow rhythm, indifferent. Lano pressed her side against my leg and watched the speaker. Ears still flat. Tail perfectly still.

The signal kept coming.