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\chapter{Codrin Bălan — 2346}}
\markboth{Codrin Bălan — 2346}{}

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\emph{Convergence T-minus 5 days, 0 hours, 51 minutes}
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\noindent Late spring was for picnics. This was, ey was assured, a universal truth.

Once the rains had calmed down and before the oppressive heat began to drift lazily in, this was the time for those who are in love to drag a thick blanket out onto the prairie, park next to one of Codrin's cairns, and share sandwiches and fizzy drinks. This was the time for parking in the sun, laying back on the blanket, heads together and feet radiating outwards, sharing in small silences and comfortable conversation.

\emph{``There is no reason that aliens should interrupt this,''} Dear had stated plainly and then dragged its partner off to the kitchen to make sandwiches and bottle up gins and tonic to bring out to the prairie.

All the same, this picnic was more muted than usual, and when they settled onto their backs, Dear's ears tickling the tops of their heads, the conversation felt careful, as though all words should veer around the topic that was on everyone's minds.

A bit more than two weeks after first contact, and the entire LV seemed to be talking about nothing else. Dear had even postponed the opening to its new show. News from Tycho was that, from day one, the Odists had been working on and shaping the spread of information.

Codrin suspected that this had come when it did in part due to the transmission delay from Lagrange, and, given what ey expected would happen with Ioan and May Then My Name, ey did not doubt that this tight control was for good reason—or at least what True Name considered good reason.

Ey had kept that thought to emself.

Ey expected True Name would be visiting eir down-tree instance and eir partner before long. Ey had suspected she would do as much as soon as ey had read anxiety in her expression at the mention of May Then My Name. She had surely sent a message back to Lagrange within seconds of em telling her such.

It was the reaction that ey was most worried about. True Name was a touchy topic with Dear, and the cold hatred of one of its cocladists was\ldots well, ey could read melancholy in the fennec's face as easily as any other emotion. Ever since news of May Then My Name's thoughts on her down-tree instance had made their way across the light-days of distance, there had been more of that. There had been days of silence, days of tears, days of walking the prairie for hours at a time. When pressed, it would simply say, \emph{``She is the best of us.''}

Ey suspected that it was worried that cracks were showing across the clade. Ioan had admitted to having such concerns as well, and even mentioned that May Then My Name herself seemed to be harboring fears. ``If Dear overflows with undirected energy,'' Ioan had written once, years ago. ``Then May overflows with tears. It's the only time she ever asks to be alone, and I will go stay with Douglas. I make a lot of chicken soup for her to have something comforting, though I'm not sure how much it helps. She will spend hours in bed, letting out all of the overwhelming emotion that she needs to in order to become whole again. I love her deeply, but I'm sure you must know the pain of watching someone you love going through something like that.''

That had been another thought ey had kept to emself.

The worry lay not in how May Then My Name might react—though Ioan had always mentioned when ey was laying in supplies for chicken soup—but in how True Name would. May Then My Name may be the best of the clade, or at least the best of that stanza, and even True Name knew that.

So today, they mostly lay in silence. It was not unpleasant, for the sun was on high and the temperature was perfect and ey could simply lay there with those ey loved.

It was Dear, of all of them, who broke the silence.

\emph{``I have been thinking about something that Sarah said.''} It sounded content enough, which Codrin was pleased to hear. \emph{``She said that we should prepared to not be able to understand them for their inhumanity.''}

``What about it?'' their partner murmured. More than content, they sounded sleepy.

\emph{``There is much we can learn about semiotics from them. We have the ability to guess, but vanishingly few chances to check. If they are truly alien from us, we may be able to confirm many hypotheses that we have had for centuries by now about how a different mind can form and hold ideas.''}

``Different environment, different \emph{Umwelt}, you mean?'' ey asked.

\emph{``No no, that term applies to those who exist within the same environment. Our environments up until now have not even been connected. We have completely different semiospheres, do we not? We cannot even make assumptions about how they form their ideas, how their semiosis works, at least not at first. It could be that there are key differences in how they are able to take in information and make meaning of it.''}

``New senses?''

Ey could feel it shrug against the picnic blanket before it said, \emph{``Perhaps. Perhaps they can sense radio waves, or perhaps, as suggested by their letter, they can sense time in some new way if they have fine-tuned control over how they experience it.''}

``Don't we have forking and merging?'' its partner asked. ``Aren't those new senses? Or at least sensations?''

\emph{``In a way, I suppose, but we can learn them. They are tied to will, as one wills a fork to exist, and they are tied to memory, as one deals with the merger as though one is remembering the fork's experiences.''}

Ey could feel the idea click into place. ``But we may not even be able to experience that in the same way as them. We may learn it in a fundamentally different way. Maybe we won't even be able to take part in it because we ourselves may be fundamentally different.''

Dear sat up quickly, laughing. \emph{``Yes, precisely! What an interesting problem. I am excited to see what all we learn.''}

The other two sat up. Codrin was not at all surprised to see the grin on the fox's face.

\emph{``This is, of course, all supposing that they really exist.''}

Their partner laughed. ``Is this in doubt or something?''

``Tycho said something at the first dinner, yeah,'' Codrin said. ``He asked if there was a chance that they weren't real and that we might actually be dreaming the whole thing up.''

``Wouldn't that take an awful lot of dreaming to accomplish? Dream the incoming signal, dream our\ldots{]uh, instruments, I guess, tracking Artemis, dream up this whole thing about races and such?''

Dear shrugged. It looked quite pleased. \emph{``Perhaps, but is that not an internally consistent dream? A dreaming mind that starts with the proposition of aliens and enough knowledge of our little world would be able to construct a consistent narrative to get us to where we are, and that is all that the System demands. The Dreamer Module, the micro-Ansible, the DMZ, all of it bears the seeds of consistency.''} Its grin widened, the volume of its voice rising. \emph{``Or perhaps the System aboard Castor is losing coherency! Perhaps our world is falling down around our ears and we would never know!''}

Codrin laughed, watching the fox get more and more animated. ``I'm pretty sure we'd know whether Castor is failing or not.''

\emph{``Do not be so sure about that, my love. We have very little insight into the world outside of the LV.''}

``I'm pretty sure we have at least some,'' eir other partner said. ``Even if it's just by way of our communications with Lagrange and Pollux.''

\emph{``Yet even that may be a dream!''} Dear giggled. \emph{``You see why this is interesting to me, though, yes? If Artemis is real, then we gain new insights into semiosis. If it is not, I get my beloved natural death.''}

Ey rolled eir eyes and shook eir head. ``Foxes.''

\emph{``You love me and you know it.''}

``Well, I mean, yes, but that was never in doubt.'' Ey leaned back on eir palms. ``Either way, I hope that they're real. That feels like the better scenario to me.''

\emph{``Boring.''}

``Hush, you,'' their partner said, poking at the fox's thigh.

\emph{``Both of you. Boring, boring, boring.''} It laughed. \emph{``But I admit that I hope that they are real, as well. I am more excited about the semiotics of aliens than the idea that Castor is failing. For instance, there is much we can learn about them from their language, I expect. I am no linguist, but how they describe their control over time, should they choose to do so, will provide much insight into the ways something that is not us perceives and interacts with their world around them. They may process signs—signs in the semiotic sense—in a very different way, and we will be able to use that and apply it to the hypotheses that we have formed over the years.''}

``Are there problems in that area that need solving?'' Codrin asked.

\emph{``I do not know. It is something which is interesting to me for its own sake. Perhaps we can learn more about sensoria,''} it said, shrugging. \emph{``For those who desire children, perhaps there are implications within that which will allow them to experience such.''}

``Do you want children, then?''

\emph{``Good Lord, no.''} It giggled. \emph{``I did not wind up with that desire. That is something for other elements of the clade. I am sure that Hammered Silver and her stanza would pounce on the idea.''}

Their partner chuckled as well. ``I thought not. Besides, can you imagine a synthesis of the three of us? A historian chef that forks like mad.''

They all laughed.

``I don't know how much of a historian I am anymore,'' ey said. ``But doubtless they would keep my love for books.''

Dear tilted its head. \emph{``Are you not? You have taken on historiographical projects in the years since the} History, \emph{have you not?{}``}

Ey shrugged. ``I have incomplete thoughts on that.''

The fox nodded. \emph{``I will not push, but I am eager to hear them at some point.''}

Ey nodded. ``Of course, Dear.''

Their other partner yawned, then let out a contented sigh. ``You know, if sunlight had weight, I would use it as a blanket. It's such a nice feeling.''

``\,`If sunlight had weight'?'' Codrin laughed. ``That sounds like a line of poetry.''

They threw a pebble at em. ``I need at least the feeling of a blanket over me if I'm going to sleep.''

``Going to take a nap? We've got a blanket right here.''

``I also need a bed beneath me.''

Ey picked the pebble up from where it had landed on eir sarong and tossed it back at them. ``Well, go in and take a nap, then. I think it's walking off the sandwiches and gin for me.''

They tossed the pebble at Dear in turn. ``Back to work with you?''

\emph{``Perhaps. I will send a fork with each of you.''}

As fox and historian walked out into the prairie, Codrin finally worked up the courage to ask Dear the question it had wanted to ever since their conversation on semiotics. ``Do you wish you were a part of the emissaries?''

\emph{``No.''} Its response was flat and immediate. \emph{``I have curiosity about the knowledge, but no desire to actually join in the experience.''}

``You don't have to answer, but do you know why?''

It thought for a moment, then shrugged. \emph{``My existence relies on understanding and responding to the actions and emotions of others. I will wait until there is a way for us to understand, and then I will experience it if I am able. If I am not, then I will simply revel in the story that you write.''}

``I'll bring back as much information as I can. Maybe some of them will stick around and you can give them a performance down the line.''

The fox laughed. \emph{``Perhaps, yes.''}

They walked in silence for a while longer. Codrin eventually gave up on walking off the gin and simply let sobriety back in.

\emph{``One more reason, my love.''}

``Hmm? Reason for\ldots?''

\emph{``For not wanting to be a part of your talks. I do not want to be a part because of this time manipulation business. I remember how it felt to be one of the lost. I remember experiencing centuries or mere seconds in that endless place of no time. I remember wondering if I would die out there after a hundred years had passed by, and I also remember only a few minutes going by before Debarre showed up.''}

``Wait, \emph{he} was the one who got you out? I would've thought some clinic technician or something.''

\emph{``Of course, my dear. Why do you think we are so close to each other? Even after all that business in the early days, we are still close.''} It grinned sheepishly. \emph{``Please do not tell him this, but I have always been a little in love with him since then. Our tastes in partners differ, so few of the clade have ever acted on it, just as Michelle never acted on it. I believe End Waking is the only one who has, and even that is complicated.''}

``Ioan seems fond of him.''

\emph{``Of course ey does,''} Dear said primly. \emph{``He is much like me if I was in any way serious.''}

Codrin grinned. ``Crazy, then?''

\emph{``A different kind of mad, perhaps. He is highly principled, though, and that along with the seriousness is a draw to Debarre, I think.''} After a few more steps, the fox added, \emph{``But yes, as mad as any of us. None of us will be comfortable with such an eternity.''}

Ey nodded, thinking back to the conversation they had shared so long ago, back when ey was newly Codrin. \emph{Trauma, if trauma this is, forges bonds,} it had said.

``Not keen on more trauma, then?''

It shoved em playfully. \emph{``You are a brat. I was just about to say that.''}

Ey laughed.

\emph{``I will not go, though,''} the fox repeated. \emph{``I will await your stories, but I will not go.''}

``I'll bring back some good ones, then.''

\emph{``I know you will. It will be an experience that I am sure many will want to hear about. I know that, should you choose to write about it, the three Systems will look forward to it.''}

Ey nodded. The idea of a project such as this lingered in eir gut like a weight, and the fact that dread tinged the excitement ey had about it only added to eir anxiety. Ey kept these thoughts to emself.

\emph{``But, my dear, do be watchful. There will be two Odists on that mission, and they will share in some of my trepidation.''} It took eir hand in its paw and gave the back of it an affectionate lick. The gesture seemed to be one designed to minimize the anxiety in the statement, but eirs or Dears, ey could not tell. \emph{``They share that same trauma. Be watchful and remember what I said: even True Name has emotions, even she will be affected.''}
