Canticle Blue

47. Dreams

Music - Snow by Loreena McKennitt

The Castel and Maire Meid were already far ahead of the Terreska when it began its re-inaugural flight. They had set out early to act as "ply-ships" and were moving at much greater speeds. Their intent was to evaluate the projected course of the habitat vessel and, eventually, the characteristics and resources of the comet itself. Since they would reach the comet months before the Terreska, they hoped to gather and transport as much ice to the ship as possible while it was en-route. If feasible, they would also stockpile ice cores for freighter missions by the shuttles to meet the water needs of the Picarin.

Because Gilon's Light was relatively small, and still over a year away from its closest approach to the sun, it was difficult to detect visually with the instruments in the smaller ships. But positional updates and course corrections were always available from the Terreska. Since it was not known if astronomers on Havel had discovered the comet and might have telescopes trained in their direction, the ships stayed in stealth mode at all times.

After maintaining their course and acceleration for three weeks, the ply-ships began to get indications of the comet on their infra-red imagers. Not long after that they found it with optical telescopes and began to record images. It showed few indications of forming an atmosphere at that point.

Each spacecraft carried two Middi pilots, a cargo module, one liana, and two coring tools. During the extended intervals of high acceleration required to reach the comet on schedule, the pilots were somewhat confined—albeit comfortably—to their seats. They didn't mind this, in the sense that a human might, because their joints and flexion elements did not experience stiffness or pain from inactivity. And the Middi did not regard lack of movement as inactivity anyway. They could still communicate with each other and access all internal or C-link resources—the latter with lengthening time delays as relative distances increased. They could even control their ships and instruments wirelessly if necessary. Much of their free time was spent sharing and storing ideas with other Middi on the Terreska and Picarin. Since their dialog was not always meant to generate useful data, human access to it through the C-link was restricted to Annibet and her immediate staff. The Middi called these deep-core file areas their "Wellspring."

And they shared more than ideas. Estmere—and eventually all of the Middi—decided to experiment with "sleep." Like all of her kind, her perceptions consisted of integrating myriad data streams from sensor arrays and personal communications. The specifics of these were evaluated and prioritized in various ways but still left areas of evident waste, including redundancy, conflicting information, and things which simply appeared to have no practical value. For her sleep mode, then, Estmere created three partitions: one for de-fragmenting and reorganizing data, another for essential awareness of her actual surroundings, and a third—and most intriguing of all—for "dreaming."

She began sharing dreams with Corei, who was still on the Picarin. The dreams could be totally created or be somewhat factual. But, in order to be dreamlike, their contents would intentionally not be presented in a straightforward manner. The dreamer would first simply watch it play out in a fluidity of visual frames and allow it to generate personal impressions. Then, if desired, or in order to share the impressions, the dreamer would offer interpretation.

Corei sent the first dream. He first made sure that Estmere had selected her dream partition, then told her to shut her eyes, which would unblock alternate pathways to her visual plexus.

Because she had been looking at the V-sky of the Maire Meid, she said, "When I close my eyes, the stars change."

He responded, "That is how the dream begins."

Indeed, there was a vault of stars above a dark room. It was so dark that she could make out the silhouettes of bare trees there by starlight alone. As she watched, a vascular network of blue veining began to glow in the branches, and radiant tendrils grew rapidly from those. On each tendril, beads of every color, shape, and luminosity began to materialize. When these were fully formed, the tendrils slowly withdrew so that a harvest rain of beads fell to the floor below until it looked like a vast woodland in autumn. And many of the beads did not immediately fall. These, too, came in great variety and radiance, but were generally shaped like circular fans, snowflakes, or seed- like spinning blades. They rode, not on currents of air, but on those produced by the same continuous energy that sent waves of light through Canticle Blue matter. So they ascended and descended in concurrent waves or divergent paths of wavelets.

As the dream ended, Corei told her, bending the rules slightly, "This is a dream and more than a dream."

Estmere sent a dream to Corei. It also began with a star field, within which the most prominent object was not a star or planet, but a blur of slowly pulsating reflected light. When it gradually became more distinct, he noticed that its length was much greater than its width and that it was tumbling. As it loomed larger, he could see that it was cylindrical, so uniformly so that it appeared to be unnatural in origin. Corei was at first given to making associations, not being accustomed to the game-like qualities of receiving a dream. He thought the cylinder might be a representation of the Terreska, yet the images were actual and not graphic depictions. The object continued to approach, and it soon became apparent from its colors, surface features, and spin that Estmere was sending image streams of Gilon's Light itself. They revealed vast plains, few impact craters, and no evidence of charring. Clearly the comet had not ventured into that part of the solar system before. Gilon's Light eventually dominated the entire panorama of the vision and swept past Corei at a visual proximity that actually triggered internal self-preservation warnings. As it began to move away, and its massive trailing edge swung through his field of view, the Castel came into view as well, a mere speck in comparison to the comet and even to the smooth region directly beneath it. Though both Middi knew what the dream contained, it was part of the game that Corei would not send an interpretation unless asked. The dream had been a gift for him to appreciate, and he was free to replay and explore it again if he wished.