Siffaith shuffled forwards. Beneath him was the rippling glassy surface of a force field, and beneath that, machinery descended, downwards, until it vanished in darkness. Most of the People were terrified of the floors-that-were-not-floors, would not willingly set foot on one. Siffaith had been scared of them, once. Now, he paid no attention. He reached out with his left claw and touched Dyegh's shoulder. "You cannot monitor it all," he said.
Dyegh shrugged off his touch.
"The teachers store the data," Siffaith said. "You can read it back at your leisure. You can take all the time that is needed."
Dyegh rounded angrily on him. "We have wasted too much time!"
Siffaith stared at him. Dyegh was visibly trembling, the shudders showing even under his loose metallic-cloth robe. His eyes were glaring. "Dyegh," Siffaith said, "what is wrong?"
"Everything," snapped Dyegh. "Or nothing. Nothing is wrong, if you live among the People and have no interest in the world around you. Everything, if you -" He stopped, and turned back to the screen with a gesture of exasperation.
"I cannot follow all the details of your tests," said Siffaith. "I do not know how to - to interpret the displays. Yet. But I know, whatever you are doing, it is a complicated thing. It is -"
"It is simple," said Dyegh. "I am trying to turn the sun back on. Simple."
"Simple to say, perhaps," said Siffaith. "But not, I think, simple to do."
"The Progenitors could manipulate the sun," said Dyegh. "We know that. We know it, because they reduced its output. I am simply trying to reverse that."
"The Progenitors made a mistake. They - they broke the sun, Dyegh. It is much easier to break something than to fix it. You know that."
"You do not understand."
"No. No, I do not. But I am trying to learn, Dyegh."
A rusty sighing sound emerged from Dyegh's beak-like mouth. "To increase stellar output back to pre-catastrophe levels, I must undo the effects of the runaway tetryon cascade, then provide a substantial energy surge to reinitialize the fusion cycles in the star's interior. The Land has the energy reserves I require, but it is not enough just to have energy, I must direct it intelligently. This means restoring many of the Land's systems to full operational capacity, and synchronizing the output modules to gain a synergistic boost. This boost must then be tuned to the correct frequency ranges to harmonize with the star's own cycles. If I had a quantum phase manipulator, the process would be simple, trivial... but I do not have a quantum phase manipulator, I do not even know if such a tool exists...."
"You must reach out across the whole of the Land?"
"Distance is not important! The Home was configured as a control centre, it can send commands for remote access to any part of the Land. But so many systems do not respond - I must adapt, improvise, work around the many, many problems...." Dyegh seemed to shrink inside his robe. "That is why I say we have wasted too much time. Millions upon millions of hours of Eternal Noon, during which the People grew placid and indolent, and the machinery, the systems I need... decayed. Time. Simply time, that is the worst enemy of all. The inexorable process of decline and decay."
"Dyegh." Siffaith's voice was firm. "I have not learned as much as you, but there are things I do know, and one of them is that, sometimes, patience is needed. That, and to work effectively, you must be in a fit state to work. How many hours has it been since you have rested? Or eaten?"
"I... I do not recall. Such things do not seem important...."
"But they are." Siffaith looked around the vast, dark chamber with its mushroom-like outcroppings of round control consoles. Off by one curving wall was a pile of fabric, where Dyegh had made a sort of nest for himself. Siffaith reached out and clasped his friend's upper arm, drawing him gently but firmly towards the nest. Dyegh allowed himself to be led.
"Rest," said Siffaith. "Rest for a few hours, at least. I will return to the lower levels and bring food for you. You must rest and eat, or you will not be able to work."
"You are right," Dyegh said, with another harsh sigh. He settled himself amidst the fabric. Siffaith watched as he curled himself into a sleeping position. "You are right...."
"Rest now," said Siffaith. "I will bring food. It will be ready for you when you awake."
He made his way to the chamber's round doorway. As the door opened, he turned to look back at the nest. Dyegh had not moved, was apparently sleeping. That was good, Siffaith thought.
---
It took some time for Siffaith to follow the gently sloping corridors down into the main body of the Home. It might have been quicker to cut across the upper surface of the structure, but that meant going outside, into the harsh light of Eternal Noonday, and none of the People liked to do that. What would it be like, Siffaith wondered, if Dyegh were to succeed, were to bring the sun back to its full strength? Why had the Progenitors settled the People here, under a light that burned and blinded? Siffaith shook his head. So many questions... and the teachers did not always have answers....
By the time he reached the main levels of the Home, many of the People were moving around the central chamber - engaged, it seemed, in some kind of game. Siffaith shuffled around the outer perimeter, ignoring them, and being ignored in return. He had joined in the games, once... he had been good at them, because he studied them, studied the rules and the settings until he understood what was needed to win. And, once he had done that... there was no challenge to the games any more, so he stopped playing.
There was shouting from the central arena - someone had scored a point. Siffaith shuffled to one of the provider alcoves, reached out a claw, engaged the interface. He studied the glowing menu as it appeared in midair. He would need food which could be eaten cold, he would need a generously sized container of water - he would have to devote some thought to figuring out Dyegh's requirements -
"Siffaith."
He turned at the sound of the voice. Tyonovon had come up behind him, and now she was looking at him with her big lustrous eyes. "You do not join the game?" she asked.
"No," he said. "No, I must bring food to Dyegh. He is busy."
"Why?"
"Why must I bring food? Because he will neglect to eat if I leave him to himself. Why is he busy? He has great plans."
Tyonovon stared at him. "You and Dyegh both wear those robes," she said. "Why? Do you want to look like Progenitors?"
"It is... practical." Like most of the People, Tyonovon had wrapped her limbs and her carapace in strips of multi-coloured fabric, ornamented with little jewels, things given out apparently at random by the provider machines. On her, the fashion looked attractive... and, Siffaith noticed, her carapace and her scales shone with a delicious iridescence, and the clicking of her voice was strangely soft and musical.... He reproved himself. This was surely no time for such thoughts.
"Practical," said Tyonovon. "Why are you concerned? For Dyegh, for - practical? You always played the games well, why do you no longer join us?" She reached out with one claw, touched his face, stroked it gently. "We miss you, Siffaith. I miss you."
"I -" Siffaith found himself at a loss. "What Dyegh is doing... is important. For all of us. Once he has succeeded, then I will join you... perhaps...."
"What is important?" asked Tyonovon. "We have all we need, in the Home. The provider machines give us food and clothes and jewels, the Home is safe and keeps out the light and the wind. What else might matter? I know," she added in impatient tones, "I know, that is not enough, you must know how everything works."
"Yes," said Siffaith, his voice finding strength. "Yes, I must, or someone must. Suppose the provider machines were to break, Tyonovon? What would happen then?"
"The provider machines do not break," said Tyonovon.
"But suppose they did? Who could fix them?"
"Nobody. That is why they do not break."
"They have not, yet," said Siffaith.
"And they never will. If they did, do you know how to fix them?"
"No," said Siffaith. "No, not yet. But I am learning, Tyonovon."
Tyonovon made a gesture of annoyance. "And while you learn, you neglect the games, and the talk among the People, and - and those who care for you. Why does your learning matter more than those?"
"I -" Siffaith stopped. Did he even have an answer for her? "What Dyegh is doing - it is - it matters to all of us -"
"Oh, Dyegh," said Tyonovon. "Go, then. Go to Dyegh, if he is so important." She turned in a swishing of fabric, and stalked away.
---
Siffaith was in a foul mood as he climbed wearily back up to Dyegh's laboratory chamber. Tyonovon... oh, she was wrong, of course, Dyegh's ambitious plan could revolutionize the world - Siffaith had only the vaguest conception of what the Land could do, with its full power restored, but it would change everything, and the People would control it, the People would reap immeasurable benefits....
But how much did that matter, he thought, compared to Tyonovon's touch?
The round door opened before him, and he stepped through. Dyegh was still curled up in his nest. As Siffaith trudged towards him, though, he heard a vague mumbling.
"… have to channel everything through the tetryon emitters... the comms waveguides, millions of miles of them, all choked with filth, nests for vermin, no use any more... but control nodes still respond on the subspace channels, tetryon modulated emissions get through, get a back-channel response... but so slow, so slow and so noisy...."
Dyegh was still asleep, but the People's multi-cameral brains sometimes did not all sleep at once; he was dreaming, or remembering, in his sleep, and verbalizing the thoughts that passed through that part of his brain. Siffaith stood still and listened. There was a chance he might discover more, that Dyegh might unconsciously explain something that was still not clear to him.
"… tetryonic pulses travel at subspace speeds, damped by the diffractor layers at the outside of the sphere of course... inside, that's another matter... but I have to use them, no way to wake up the machinery without them, unless I travel to each site in person... would take a lifetime, a thousand lifetimes, millions of hours... but the pulses, the pulses... so much risk... the new gods, the new gods might hear, they might even understand...."
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