[Post and Log]
With all of the recent misgiving,
What labels one as being living?
What horrible deeds
Place one below weeds?
What source makes them not worth forgiving?
---Another Day at the Office---
It's a dusty dark room down here. Even Juliette, whose cleaning routine rivals the superstitious rituals of sports players, doesn't venture down here. Perhaps she senses a bit of Noriko in this massive metal box?
Erland disliked coming down here. Well, let's be honest, he hates it. Playing with wraithbone is ever so much easier; just let the genetic macro do most of the work. Simple. This. This... thing. Not simple. Oh sure, to a human it looked like some glorified computer. In many ways it was. But that wasn't the hard part.
No, the hard part is much subtler. Much 'higher'. The box is just the river delta... where everything flows out into 'reality'. The machine was much larger, stretching out into the many layers of existence like roots. Digging deeper, deeper, deeper, trying to reach the ground water, the Source. A massive celestial antenna. Erland could see it, but not with his body. It always made his head hurt.
But of course, he needed to work on it. Getting the raw material for terraforming is a major undertaking, and this, though at once both overly elaborate and somewhat crude... it worked. And it made things a lot easier. That is, assuming it doesn't disrupt certain things too badly. And there was plenty it could disrupt.
The girls didn't know about it for the most part... they didn't need to. Erland's world is made for convenience and comfort. A single, consistent knit of space-time simply didn't cut it. There was the door, of course. A marvelous piece of work... provided by Xi, of course. But there were others. The subtlest being around Vidya's lab. It did her no good to perform experiments when the results wouldn't match those on Earth, now did it? It meant being a little less powerful there, but it was easy to reverse if need arose.
But that wasn't really what Erland was worried might break. Erland knew very well what some of the layers this machine reached through did... one in particular he was intimately familiar with... and he knew what could reach through if he wasn't careful. He'd already dodged a bullet with Setsu's little walk. It seems like she didn't really notice that she jumped from one side of the planet to the other side. Just as well. She may be curious, but there are some things a military robot just isn't equipped to face.
"...goodness, is it getting so late already? I'd better head up for supper."
Erland climbed up the circular staircase, catching Shiyoko heading into the dining room, Shinoko running to catch up behind her. He took his customary spot, and smiled at the girls as Vidya brought the main course to the table.
"What have you been up to, dear?" Vidya asked, as she usually did.
"Just the terraforming," Erland replied.
"I hope ya get it done soon. It's really f$#@ing boring out there," Shiyoko cut in.
"...yeah, I know," Erland said.
What labels one as being living?
What horrible deeds
Place one below weeds?
What source makes them not worth forgiving?
---Another Day at the Office---
It's a dusty dark room down here. Even Juliette, whose cleaning routine rivals the superstitious rituals of sports players, doesn't venture down here. Perhaps she senses a bit of Noriko in this massive metal box?
Erland disliked coming down here. Well, let's be honest, he hates it. Playing with wraithbone is ever so much easier; just let the genetic macro do most of the work. Simple. This. This... thing. Not simple. Oh sure, to a human it looked like some glorified computer. In many ways it was. But that wasn't the hard part.
No, the hard part is much subtler. Much 'higher'. The box is just the river delta... where everything flows out into 'reality'. The machine was much larger, stretching out into the many layers of existence like roots. Digging deeper, deeper, deeper, trying to reach the ground water, the Source. A massive celestial antenna. Erland could see it, but not with his body. It always made his head hurt.
But of course, he needed to work on it. Getting the raw material for terraforming is a major undertaking, and this, though at once both overly elaborate and somewhat crude... it worked. And it made things a lot easier. That is, assuming it doesn't disrupt certain things too badly. And there was plenty it could disrupt.
The girls didn't know about it for the most part... they didn't need to. Erland's world is made for convenience and comfort. A single, consistent knit of space-time simply didn't cut it. There was the door, of course. A marvelous piece of work... provided by Xi, of course. But there were others. The subtlest being around Vidya's lab. It did her no good to perform experiments when the results wouldn't match those on Earth, now did it? It meant being a little less powerful there, but it was easy to reverse if need arose.
But that wasn't really what Erland was worried might break. Erland knew very well what some of the layers this machine reached through did... one in particular he was intimately familiar with... and he knew what could reach through if he wasn't careful. He'd already dodged a bullet with Setsu's little walk. It seems like she didn't really notice that she jumped from one side of the planet to the other side. Just as well. She may be curious, but there are some things a military robot just isn't equipped to face.
"...goodness, is it getting so late already? I'd better head up for supper."
Erland climbed up the circular staircase, catching Shiyoko heading into the dining room, Shinoko running to catch up behind her. He took his customary spot, and smiled at the girls as Vidya brought the main course to the table.
"What have you been up to, dear?" Vidya asked, as she usually did.
"Just the terraforming," Erland replied.
"I hope ya get it done soon. It's really f$#@ing boring out there," Shiyoko cut in.
"...yeah, I know," Erland said.