Dream d1301-s: What the Junction Holds

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the Builder stepped off the main trail without announcing her intention, and we all followed because that was how she worked - action first, explanation optional. She had been tracking a cable trench for twenty minutes, watching it widen, watching the conduit fittings change from improvised to deliberate. When the trench opened into a chamber eight meters across, she crouched at the threshold and I heard her exhale slowly through her nose.

Four conduit runs converged here, one from each compass point and one overhead. Old fittings, but maintained - someone had replaced a junction cap recently enough that the crimp pattern was still clean.

The Builder ran a finger along the seam. "This pattern. We use this." She looked at the Wireman. "You use this."

The Wireman was already at the far wall, reading a stack of terminal blocks with both hands spread flat. He said nothing. He didn't need to.

The Philosopher dragged his cart to a halt just inside the entrance. "What we're observing," he announced, "is either the oldest copy of our methodology or the original. I'm prepared to argue either position."

"Signal is three decibels stronger here than at the surface," the Weather Reader said from the center of the room, where he'd set a sensor on the stone floor. "The geometry amplifies."

The Listener ignored him. She was pressed against the curved wall with her eyes closed. "It cycles every forty-one seconds," she said. "Count it."

I counted it. She was right.

Lano had not moved from the entrance. His ears were flat - not the half-alert of something interesting, the full press-down that meant wrong. He gave one sharp bark, then sat completely still.

The radio on the Weather Reader's pack crackled. The Beacon Network Specialist's voice came through compressed and stone-distorted from far above.

"Party. Fuel reserves at nine percent. I'm cycling down to essential systems only. Salvage run came back short - site was stripped before we got there. We're running the numbers and they don't balance past fourteen days."

Nobody moved.

The Student said, very quietly: "Fourteen days."

"The signal came from somewhere," the Weather Reader said. He looked at his sensor readout, then at the Listener still pressed to the wall. "If the source has infrastructure, it may have what we need."

"That," the Philosopher said, "is either the best argument we have or the most dangerous one. I cannot yet determine which."

The Builder was already marking her map. I watched her hand move and thought: we have been building toward something for a long time, and now the thing we built needs us to keep moving.

Lano said: "Vamos."