Chapter 1, "Day -31", Scene 3

Weir Annadetcall

     Stars drilled through the sky. Their wells of light twinkling lent depth and texture to the black surrounding them. The broad expanse, uncompromised by clouds, gave a rendition perfect of the vista that named the season "Velvet Nights."
     Weir Annadetcall stood beneath this glory, his eyes welling in appreciation. He let the tears run. They blurred his vision. They trickled over his upraised cheeks. They drained into his ears.
     Seldom did he find and take the time to witness this beauty natural, though it made itself available to anyone willing to look up. Each time he did, the universe drew emotions exquisite up out of his soul. Only in this place could he feel both trivial and eminent, vulnerable and invincible. Often, the view exhausted him. Tonight, though, he had great appetite.
     At last, the tickling tears were too much. Weir broke from his statue pose with a guffaw. Using a kerchief in one hand, he swabbed his face dry with a flurry of strokes and dabs. Finally, he cleared his nose, still clogged from emotions.
     In his other hand, he held his llevar, quietly doing its job. Its holoscreen, bright in the dark, caught his attention — and sobered him. He brought his face around, leaving the kerchief, and the hand clutching it, dangling. He stared somberly into the hemisphere projected, the bulk of its territory jumbled with text. With one keystroke, or a syllable spoken, he could launch this message.
     So, why don't I just do it?
     No' time yet, he answered himself.
     He focused on a small panel lying over the words. It showed a clock counting down seconds. It allowed for time processing. It allowed for time routing. It allowed for twenty seconds of time contingency. It told him how exactly many seconds he had left before he could send the message that would switch on the great engine of competition he had been coaxing into existence.
     The clock cycled, another second gone to join tens of millions already spent on this project. Engrossed, Weir studied the number shining on the clock face. It regulated his near future by trapping him here till its life ran out. It heralded his next future, thousands of seconds yet to be spent.
     Why couldn't he just cut through to the future? Send the message now?
     Because Günter had told him not to.
     His throat tightened with exasperation. His face flushed, its skin warm with obedience and devotion. His legs cramped from inaction. He took a few steps. He put away his kerchief, then shifted the llevar from one hand to the other.
     After a moment lost to discord internal, he looked over the message's envelope once again. Origin: Combine for Anshinkan in Ganj Dareh Neighborhoods (Weir Annadetcall, Tactician). Destination: Collective Ganj Dareh, Continent Popovich. Subject: Intent to Bid for Contract to Provide Anshinkan Services.
     He dropped his gaze to the message's body, filled with text pro-forma, as copied from the Collective's Notice of Competition, but he immediately bogged down. He and his people had been over the wording so many times that it was like gumming chaff. Besides, at this late second, he wasn't going to change a thing. All he could do was send it; instead, he stretched out his arm, pushing the llevar and its hood of a screen away, until the text blurred and the only thing he could perceive was the message itself, intangible and potent.
     Someone cleared his throat. Weir spun around. He had thought himself alone in this meadow. He had walked some distance from his quarters for just that reason. And now, in the blur of shadow on shadow, of starlight's illumination fickle, he could see nothing but a silhouette, vague, yet bulky, blocking the horizon.
     "Escaping karoshi?" The heavy voice identified the visitor as his boss, Günter Gatogrebok. Not just his boss, but strategist to tacticians running selected projects all over Yeibichai, along with acting as Coordinator for the entire Gatogrebok Con-Hominium, the largest affiliation of combines on the planet.
     "Denied, Günter. Just escaping the crowds." Weir waved his personal entrance to the Mirnaya Direvnya. "'Demands of the job' as close as my llevar. Or for that matter, as every thought waking. Or —" he sighed "— for that matter, as every dream as well."
     "I sympathize. You are facing a cusp." The old man kept his distance, his rumble clear in the calm night.
     "Agreed. This message goes and my life shifts, from planning — hectic, but academic only — to implementing, hectic and real." He hesitated before revealing, "I am worried."
     "A Pattern in Life."
     "Agreed. The entire combine has worked hard and long to reach this cusp. Everyone is primed to shift. But there's 'primed', and then there's 'primed.'"
     Günter didn't reply, but stood waiting. He seemed patient and receptive.
     Weir examined the distance between them, the ground covered with grass, tufted and scattered with flowers, the air filled with smells of summer, the sky arching above, and wrestled to keep his manner polite, when he really wanted to be alone. No, I really want to send the message and get to bed.
     So he lifted his face to the sky again, then a moment later, pointed with the llevar. "The Lame Swan."
      "Nana Buluku, to the west."
      "Itbalintja Soak, back the other way. And the Bandicoot Seeking It."
     "Constellations," Günter said, "are Patterns imposed on Nature by Humanity before they perceived the Patterns actual in Nature."
     Words streamed from Weir's mouth unfettered by thought. "Then why do we have them here, on Yeibichai?" Too late, he cringed. The question hung in the air, as impudent in his ears as he was afraid it sounded to Günter.
     "Because they are fun." A chuckle bounced through Günter's words. "Because they help our children relate to the night sky. Because Patterns in Thought have to begin somewhere."
     Weir clenched his eyelids. He didn't want to hear it. "I'm no' realizing this pattern stuff well," he muttered. "Patterns in Life. Patterns in Thought. Patterns in Society. Pattern Languages within Pattern Languages. How can anybody think in Patterns?"
     Günter said nothing and Weir realized that maybe this uncommon man had always thought in Patterns. He slumped. Such faux pas, so common lately, reminded him how new he was to this level of action. So very recently, he had confidently managed a small combine on Continent Carpenter. Then Günter had enticed him into this move, to Continent Grissom, to a combine nearly six-hundred strong, to a project with ambitions transcontinental. And every moment since, he had struggled with the task, his former confidence meagerly guiding his way. "I don't understand why you gave me this job."
      "I do."
     This brief declaration, said with such simple gravity, injected Weir with assurance. If Günter believed in him, he could too, because he already did, really, underneath the daily load of problems and challenges and other organizational detritus. He treasured the boost, allowing it to restore his perception of his readiness and the readiness of his new combine.
     The moment stretched, drawing Weir's attention out to all of his senses as the world caressed his body. Günter's conviction did its work.
      "Accepted," Weir said finally. "I judge that the combine is well-prepared to tackle this job."
     "Agreed. You are."
     "Accepted. The combine is quite a machine, eager to go."
      A few more moments passed, each man separate in his appreciation of the elements.
     "Constellations," Günter said slowly, his deep voice rising from a whisper, "remind us of Patterns nightly. On Continent Popovich, apparently, they watch the sky very little during the night."
     "They're still allowing us to compete."
      "Time will tell."
     "Har Norma still allows Notices of Competition."
     "Perhaps there is inertia in the Patterns that even she does not notice, a situation she may rectify when we bring it to her attention."
     "So let us —" Weir stopped, but Günter gave no reaction. Weir looked at the countdown clock. Tens of seconds waited their turn. He braced himself and said, "So let us send the message now and start our campaign."
     "No." Günter moved. His silhouette faded into standing shadows while his passage sounded a few hints of his approach. He spoke, at last, from close by. "We follow the pattern of the sculptor who begins her work with a single sharp blow that announces — to herself, to the stone, to everyone — that a cusp has occurred, that the universe will now be different. Because, Weir, the sculptor must destroy to create, just as we do."
     Weir said nothing. He was ashamed of his impatience. He was proud of his discipline that had not yielded to that impatience.
     Günter continued, "We invoke drama, Weir. We use the import of the last moment to intensify our first blow because we plan to shatter a monolith that envelops a continent. And we hope—" he gathered breath "— we hope that we can free the people, return them to their Patterns. We hope that the seeds of disaster planted by Har Norma in her own yard stir to life because of the light and inspiration and sustenance we inject."
     Weir put off his response, but Günter said nothing more. "So we wait," the younger man said.
     "We wait." Günter laid a hand on Weir's shoulder. "In the scheme of things, it is not long."
     "Agreed. But I do have to sit down."
     Günter boomed out a laugh. "Agreed."
     Weir used his eyes and feet to find a stretch of grass that was level, soft, and dry. He laid back on it and waited. He heard Günter do the same.
     Some time later, amid nature's restless hush, Weir's llevar announced its action with the alert for completion he'd chosen: a bugle playing the ancient cavalry call "To Arms," Southern version for its more elaborate signature. On the screen, the agent for messages pushed its own buttons, dispatched Weir's intent to bid into the Mirnaya Direvnya, labeled his copy of it as "sent," then shrank itself to a glyph. Behind these actions, the llevar continued its imitation of a bugler.
     "Only challenge begets progress," Günter intoned.
     "Agreed."
      The night settled around them again, its breezes, scents, noises, and sights soft.
     A few seconds later, the llevar signaled the arrival of a receipt for delivery. With a poke, Weir acknowledged the message, consisting of no more than a replica of the envelope and a time of delivery to the Collective Ganj Dareh. Weir relaxed back onto his swath of grass.
     After another, much longer time, Günter murmured, "Business resumes in the morning."
     "Agreed," Weir said from his berth beneath the stars.

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