Dream d1412-s: The Last Fitting

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the footpath curved through a screen of birch and opened into a clearing I recognized by smell before I saw it - sawdust and resin, warm from a day's work. The Wireman stood at a long bench, fitting a joint. Not hurrying. His hands moved the piece to check the gap, set it back down, small nod.

Lano's ears pricked before mine registered anything. Lano stood at the edge of the clearing, nose lifted, facing northeast. Then sat.

"Lejos," Lano said.

The Dreamer was behind the workshop, bent over a shallow tray of pressed specimens - leaves, bark sections, a fragment of lichen dried flat between boards. She was labeling them with a stylus. I watched a moment before she looked up.

"The Weather Reader's instrument is still reading it," she said. "He had me document the frequency envelope. It doesn't look like anything I've pressed before."

The Wireman set his fitting aside and picked up a length of cable from the bench. He examined the end, replaced the ferrule with something smaller from a tin, crimped it once, and added it to the growing pile of equipment by the door.

The pile was substantial. I had not been the first to start packing.

The Weather Reader came around the far side of the workshop reading from a scroll of paper tape. He walked past me without looking up.

"Still faint. But it has a period. Not noise. A period means a source."

The Builder followed two steps behind, marking something on her survey cloth. "Northeast by eleven degrees from the last mapped node. I've extended the grid to the edge of the vellum. After that we draw as we go."

"Draw as we go," the Philosopher repeated from inside the workshop, voice carrying through a gap in the boards. The sound of something being stacked. "Not terra incognita. Not the unknown. The actively-being-known."

"It's still a blank," the Builder said, without heat.

"All the best things are, initially," the Philosopher said.

The Wireman examined his fitting one more time and placed it with the cable. He did not say anything. He rarely did.

The signal was not audible to me. That was the Listener's territory, or the Weather Reader's instruments. But the air had a quality of stillness that felt attentive - the way a room feels when someone has just stopped speaking. Clear sky above the clearing. No wind. Sawdust hanging in low-angle light.

Lano padded to the equipment pile and lay down against it.

The Dreamer capped her stylus and stood. "I'll need a second tray," she said. "There will be more."