Dream d1834-s: Tracks in Storm-Amber

I had a dream where...

I had a dream where the amber light that had been sitting over Ospreycrossing all afternoon turned wrong while we were reading the testing grounds.

We had found them at the settlement's edge before the light changed - a flat run of packed earth with targets set at measured intervals, chalk lines scratched into the soil, notches in the posts where something had been counted and recorded. The Builder crouched at the nearest post and pressed her thumb into a wood-splice at its base. "Days old," she said. "Whoever set this up worked fast."

I opened the book and wrote: testing ground, east edge, fresh-cut posts, measured paces, purpose unconfirmed.

We had already noted the cart-tracks that morning. Every road into Ospreycrossing bore them, deep in the soft shoulder, the kind left by repeated heavy loads over recent days. The Weather Reader had knelt at a rut and pressed two fingers into it. "Within a week," she said. "Maybe less." We had heard hammers going after dark the previous two nights - not one hammer, several, and voices underneath, too faint to parse from our lodging.

The city was building something. We did not yet know what.

Lano had been sniffing the perimeter of the testing ground for several minutes, working in widening arcs the way she does when something does not resolve cleanly. Then her ears went flat.

It came from the west. Not gradually - a wall of wind that struck the tallest antenna masts at the settlement's communications quarter and set them screaming. Lano barked once, sharp and directed, looking at the masts.

"There it is," the Weather Reader said, standing. She had her instruments out already; she had seen it building in the pressure an hour ago and said nothing until she was certain. "I had hoped the ridge would turn it."

The masts held, but two cable lines running between them whipped loose and lashed at the trench covers below. Water was already running in the trenches - rain arriving ahead of the main body of the storm, sheeting sideways under the gusting.

A lamp in the generator shed at the settlement's north end flickered twice. Then again.

The Builder was already moving toward it. "Those trenches weren't sealed for this weight of rain," she said, not accusatory - just reading what she saw. "Come on."

Rurik appeared at the fork in the path between the testing ground and the communications quarter. He sat, amber eyes fixed on me, and did not move. Marking the threshold. Waiting for the decision.

I closed the book. Lano pressed against my leg - aqui - and I put my hand on her head.

We went toward the generator.