72 - I Have Access

THE BEGINNING OF THE ‘SEA’

From Lainz the City:

“This Lin in the Great Market is now showing the much changed coast of Trovi.  The river is, for the first time in our known history, making it all the way to the edge of the continent in quantities that allow it to flow all the way to the bottom of the basin." Dag drew in a deep breath and then continued her dictating, as smoothly as she could. How everything has changed.

"The main Lin stone shows the ever increasing motion below, as the water gathers in the basins. There is now enough water in the system that when the rains come through in spring and fall that there is enough left behind to form more than a sand slurry in the lowlands.  The blue and glimmering that you see is the water, on the surface."

"Our fearless FireDrake 200 is currently sending images from all along the edge of what will, one day, be the edge of the sea."

"Already one can see what are known as ‘tides’, as the moon above pulls on the surface water, raising the quicksand there by as much as a thumb’s depth.”

Dag put her thumb on the spot in the crystal that would pause the recording and cleared her throat.  The paper Lins would print her story, just as the recording crystal would be placed by the bees and set to run whenever anyone stopped to look.  Some people were so mesmerized by the waterfalls and the first puddles below that they camped out in front of it and just sat and watched.  Yasna and Zilke and other dark monks were checking that people had enough cover from the sun and enough water.  They were also checking that no one was falling into coding sickness, just over the sight of that much water.

“The Lin stone to your left is showing the occasionally updated feed from the Moon, and a long-loop recording of the launch and landing of Mom.”  Another sip of water.

“The Lin stone to your right is showing the new lake being created in the badlands, by Prime’s continued bombardment, with ice.  He is actually, finally, fulfilling his obligation to us by supplying the water so long withheld, but he is doing it in a way that he believes has killed us off.  His Radiance Kyrus states that should any kind of assistance come to us from off planet, Prime will be able to argue a simple mistake or glitch in code.  We survive and we will let the greater civilization know that Prime is a criminal attempting to kill us all.”

People stared at that stone as well.  The lake had grown so deep that the new fireballs blazing down from the sky were splashing and sending huge waves to slosh out in circles, the sand showing each new high water mark with a different colour wavering around the edges.  Secondary puddles were being made as each missile fell to its destruction and spattered a ring of secondary impact sites all around. 

Every few days there would be another ground shake because of the sudden increase of water and stone dust and dirt.

Dag shifted back to her main recording. “We have, with diligent work, uncovered a broken fragment of our actual Charter, signed by the original owners, Perrin, Gregor and Petra, Nadian and her husband, though we do not know his name.  We are currently putting together all the pieces we can and, at His Radiance’s command, release this so everyone knows what their ancestors truly agreed to.”

They might have signed away their lives and ours too, but we nearly lost that information. The Milari have most of it with their Deemanders who are specifically rememberers.  The Nadumon have part of it. Who knows what the Hippifrei and the Rumon have? Hmmm.  We have bees out with the bone herders now and that gives me access. I should go looking in code, there.