Dream d1423-s: Already Made

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the path to the workshop clearing ran along a dry creek bed, and I smelled sawdust before I saw the light through the trees.

Lano walked ahead of me on the worn footpath, ears already up, nose working the air. Not the sawdust. Something else.

The Wireman was at his bench when we arrived. He had a length of pale wood braced against a wooden stop and was drawing a plane along its face in long even strokes. Shavings curled off in thin spirals and settled around his boots. He did not look up when we came into the clearing.

Behind the workshop, the Dreamer knelt in the specimen garden, rows of pressed plants mounted on board, arranged by some system I did not understand. She was adding a new one, pressing a flat-leafed stem under waxed paper with the heel of her hand.

"You're early," she said, without looking up either.

"The Weather Reader messaged. He said the readings shifted again overnight."

She nodded and kept pressing. "I know. I've been up since five."

The Wireman made one more pass with the plane, then set it down and held the board up to the morning light. He turned it once. Set it on the bench. Picked up a different tool.

I said, "Are you making something for the expedition?"

He didn't answer immediately. Then: "Already made."

He reached under the bench and lifted out a wooden case, narrow, fitted with internal channels lined in felt. Spaces for instruments. Space for the Listener's small transceivers. Space for things I hadn't thought to pack.

Lano sat at the edge of the clearing, nose pointed northeast. Her ears stayed up for a long moment. Then she said quietly: "lejos."

The Dreamer looked over at her. The Wireman looked over at her. I looked northeast, through the trees, toward the Undrawn Edge and whatever lay past it.

The air was clear. The light was ordinary. But somewhere in it, if you had the right instruments, there was a frequency that didn't belong to anything anyone had built.

The Wireman picked up the fitted case and set it on top of his pack.

That was how the Wireman said he was ready.