Dream d1387-s: Signal and Splinter

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the footpath opened into a sawdust-scented clearing and the workshop was already lit before we arrived, its single window throwing pale yellow across the pressed specimens laid in rows behind the building.

The man at the bench was shaping something long and curved, his plane making a sound like breath. I didn't interrupt. Lano padded ahead of me along the edge of the clearing, nose working the air, then stopped and sat, ears at attention.

The Weather Reader had arrived before us. He stood to one side of the workshop with his portable kit open - the pressure sensors, the atmospheric membrane, the thin ribbon of recording tape - and he was frowning at the readout with the focused expression he only wore when the data was doing something it shouldn't.

"Still there," he said, without looking up.

"Faint," I said.

"Faint but coherent. It's not noise. Noise doesn't repeat at this interval." He tapped the tape. "Seven point four hours. Precise."

The Builder came around from behind the workshop, where she'd been checking the foundation of the raised storage platform. She had her notebook open and a pencil behind one ear. "Platform's solid," she said to no one in particular. "Better footings than anything in the lower quarter." Then, to the Weather Reader: "Did you cross-reference with the Listener's log?"

"He's bringing it. His low-band unit was calibrated last week, so his timestamps should align."

The woman tending the pressed specimens looked up briefly, then returned to her work. She moved among the rows with a methodical care that reminded me of the Philosopher sorting index cards - the same attention to order, to record, to the belief that documentation is a form of respect.

Then the radio crackled.

It was the Beacon Network Specialist's voice, but compressed and odd, carrying an urgency that didn't fit the usual channel check. "Settlement, this is relay. Something's happening at the lower conduit block. Old section. Pre-network. I need - "

Static.

Lano was already on four feet. Ears flat. A single short bark.

The Builder had her pencil out. The Weather Reader's hand hovered over the pause lever on his recorder.

The radio crackled again. "- wall section came down. Cables on the east run. Two severed, maybe three. The building is - it's tilted. Not collapsed. But tilted."

I looked at the Weather Reader. He looked at the Builder.

The man at the bench had stopped planing. The clearing was very quiet.

"Mierda," said Lano.