Canticle Blue

40. Impressions

Music - The Wild Song by Anuna

Sunrise in the Terreska after the previous night's festivities was as splendid as the sunset, with slow waves of sunlight sweeping ever deeper into the habitat area
like lighthouse beams and finally settling into morning. Almost everyone made a point of getting up to see it, even if they intended to go right back to bed. They gathered at habitat windows just to feel the warmth on their faces.

That afternoon, news about Per'sa Island, confirmed by the arrival of the Castel and Silver Run, was received with relief and regret: relief that technology discovered on the island would be unavailable to potential adversaries; regret that a place which had often seemed magical, and had brought joy to so many, was now gone.

Later in the day, several Terreska residents expressed a need to address ethical questions raised by what had been done on the island. The community leaders agreed to discuss those in the Commons that evening.

In preparation for that meeting, Annibet even queried the Middi. Estmere, expressing agreement among them, said, "In discussions beforehand and afterward, we found no clear variances with our ethical directives or with ethical guidelines in the Deep Core, especially since great efforts were made to relocate animal populations on the island. It was something new for Corei and I to experience regret while doing what we believed was a necessary thing." She smiled. "Corei also concluded that, despite his immersion, the volcano did not incur blame."

The meeting began well after sunset, and a few of the original island team members, who were comfortable in such roles, prepared to take questions. The first was: "Was there any other way to hide the technology?"

Tor answered, "There were problems with no short-term solutions, things that simply couldn't be moved—the crater surfaces and elevator platform, for instance. We were able to remove the responsive-reading panels from the sanctuary, as well as several live cultures of glowing phytoplankton, and to bring them here."

Os was asked, "What if the cargo ship had been sunk?"

He replied, "The ship was well out to sea when we originally started the End-Stone. Since, as far as we knew, the stone was working properly, we decided to leave the island. We didn't expect significant seismic activity or destructive waves from what we felt would be a relatively controlled eruption because we had seen very little swelling in the magma dome over the years. What we did expect—based on the geological history and layout of the island—was that lava flows would not only prevent anyone from landing on the island, but would fill the waterwheel cavern, the city, the cave opening inside the caldera, and the sea tunnel."

Someone familiar with the permanent core structures of the Middi asked if any of them had reported internal conflicts. Annibet related Estmere's consensus statement and then added, "Corei was in agreement with the rest of the Middi but also expressed doubt about whether the End-Stone was ever in complete working order. He said it appeared to him as if something external acted upon the stone to set it spinning. There had been many sitings of a "Blue Ghost" on the island over the years, and in this instance too. All the information we've collected points to it being an entity rather than a phenomenon. And it is not at all understood."

The next question had to do with ownership of the island. A legal-relations expert from the Institute answered that one. "Where laws and rulings from various authorities are allowed to conflict, one cannot obey them all. All of our claims to Per'sa Island over the centuries had been recognized as legally valid, at least by our own courts."

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After the destruction of Per'Sa Island, the pace of restoration work on the Terreska accelerated dramatically. When the number of people requesting transport from the Bryn Colony to the ship actually began to decrease, the islander spacecraft were free to search for raw materials. Since there were now over seventy unused habitats in the pressurized rings, priorities shifted to preparing other areas.

The Atrium was the first new area available, and it quickly became a hub of research and development. The Middi had already set up much of Annibet's original Materials Science lab there, and soon the Castel and Maire Meid were making night flights to the Bryn Institute to bring new personnel and equipment from other disciplines.

Before the Vasta was pressurized, it was treated as an archeological site. So many things of historical relevance had been detected above and below the floor of the dome that the Middi were asked to map its interior with state-of-the-art imagers. While making virtual casts of footprints found on an ancient pathway, they found the foundations of a small structure with an airtight hatch in a metal floor.

Geddes, Syl, and Elyse, wearing filter masks at first, were the first humans to enter the dome once the atmosphere had been restored. With the around-the-clock help from the Middi, they documented artifact and plant remains throughout the structure. The plants were then gathered for composting, and any found seeds saved for viability tests. By comparing Vasta soil samples to historical records, Elyse determined that a small portion of the dome had once been used for hybridizing edible plants. In the database she also found ample information on artificial lighting, humidity levels, and air circulation. The Terreska crew had every hope of eventually restoring the Vasta to a nature preserve, but expected food needs called for cultivation. When the first plantings there showed surprising vigor, Gilon and Estmere began to guide the Terreska day-lengths into summer.

As harvest time in the Vasta drew near, the crew of the Terreska received a C-link call from Chancellor Meric, which was taken by Grahmen Ravi. The Chancellor told him, "We have recently been visited by representatives of the provincial government here, and it looks they are beginning to put the Colony under increased scrutiny because of what happened on Per'sa Island. Evidently in keeping with their suspicions, they are requiring all of our grade-level students to register for certain compulsory public-school classes this fall. As an excuse for this policy, they claim that our children are becoming disadvantaged in society because their religious curricula are not "balanced" by secular ideas.  We told them we would discuss this with our people. But, what I would like to be able to tell them—in truth—is that many of our parents could not comply with this in good conscience and would seek asylum for their families elsewhere. Some are, in fact, already making this request..."

Grahmen replied, "I'll take this to the rest of the crew immediately and get back with you." When he returned the call, he said, "We now have an open-door policy for asylum-seekers from the colony." To which he added, only half-humorously, "We might need to borrow food occasionally."

In this way over a hundred children and their families found new homes on the Terreska.