Dream d1535-s: Running Without Witness

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where we stopped in a clearing ringed by pines, and the Woodworker found the bench before anyone suggested it - a long plank of fir over two sawhorses, someone else's setup, unmaintained but solid. He ran his thumb along the edge and nodded once. That was enough. He pulled out a drawknife and started in on a piece of fruitwood he had carried since the convergence.

Lano circled the clearing perimeter twice, nose low, ears moving like small antennas. She did not bark. She sat down at the edge of the path we had come from and looked north.

The Eye settled behind a lean-to of corrugated metal, old storage, and laid out her pressed specimens on a tarp. She was cataloguing. She always catalogued when she was processing something she could not yet name. I had learned to read that.

The hum was present. It had been there since the pines thickened this morning - not loud, a frequency that sat in the chest rather than the ear. The Listener had mentioned it once, early, and then said nothing more. I watched her now. She was watching the canopy with her head slightly tilted.

The Dreamer sat on a stump at the clearing's north edge. Camera in his lap. Not raised.

The Builder walked up beside him - not beside, slightly behind, the way you stand when you are reading someone's posture. He said, "Relay housing on the third pine from the left. Top-mounted. Good weatherproofing."

The Dreamer said nothing.

The Builder glanced at me and then back at the housing. "Whoever did this knew what they were doing. Conduit buried at least forty centimeters. Hardware cloth around the roots."

The Philosopher had been unwrapping books from the wagon. He stopped. "Are you reading the infrastructure or are you reading him?"

The Builder considered this. "Both."

Lano's tail moved once. She kept watching north.

I sat down near the Dreamer's stump and did not speak either. The clearing had a temperature to it - not cold, not warm. Held. The Woodworker's drawknife made its clean strokes and shavings accumulated at his feet. The Eye's pencil scratched across paper. The hum continued.

The Student appeared at my shoulder. "Has he said anything?"

"No."

She sat down beside me. We watched the Dreamer watch the north treeline. In the pines, at regular intervals, the camera housings caught the afternoon light. They were pointed at things. They were still running. No one was watching the feeds.

"Alguien," Lano said.

I did not know if she meant the Dreamer, or whoever built this, or both.