Dream d1407-s: Still Hands, Far Signal

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the path through the pines leveled out into packed earth and the smell of resin and sawdust arrived before the workshop did.

The Wireman was at the bench. He did not look up. A long piece of ash was clamped to the vise and he was running a hand plane along its face in slow, even strokes, testing with his thumb after each pass. Shavings curled to the ground. The motion was unhurried the way things are unhurried when a person knows the expedition leaves at dawn regardless.

Behind the workshop, the Dreamer crouched among her specimen boards - pressed leaves and lichen fixed behind glass, sorted by terrain type. Choosing which ones to carry.

"He's been at it since first light," the Weather Reader said, appearing at my shoulder with his tablet under his arm. I hadn't heard him on the path. "Says the piece needs finishing before he can leave. I stopped asking what it's for."

Lano trotted ahead into the clearing, nose working the space in a grid - the bench, the shaving pile, the rain barrel at the corner. Then she stopped at the workshop's eastern wall and raised both ears. Straight up.

"She hears it?" the Weather Reader asked.

"She hears something."

The signal I had pulled from the atmospheric stack was faint enough to log as artifact. It did not match weather. It did not match the orbital sweep. It did not match anything in the pattern library going back fourteen seasons. I had run the filter three times. The signal was real and old and not diminishing.

The Dreamer emerged from behind the workshop with four specimen boards under one arm. "I'm keeping the geological series," she announced. "Botanical is too heavy."

"The botanical series is always too heavy," the Weather Reader said.

"You said that last time and I was right last time."

"You were not right last time. We left three panels at the river crossing and I had to document the lichen gap from memory."

"Your memory is fine."

"My memory is not a replacement for a pressed specimen."

The Wireman set down the plane and ran his thumb along the ash plank end to end. He unclamped it, set it against the wall, and stood looking at Lano at the eastern wall without speaking.

"Lejos," Lano said.

Lano had not moved from the wall. Her tail was still. Her ears were up.

I looked at the finished plank. He had made something for this. He had known we were going before anyone said so out loud.

The Weather Reader's tablet registered the signal again. Still faint. Still holding.

The Philosopher hadn't arrived. The Builder was still on the settlement's outer edge with her survey map. We hadn't discussed the route.

But the Wireman had finished his work, and Lano's ears were up, and the sawdust in the clearing smelled like the beginning of something.