The Stone Sky (The Broken Earth #3)(13)
The conductor seems pleased that I say “How do you do” when I’m supposed to. I’m glad; introduction is very difficult, but I’ve worked hard to become good at it. After this she starts speaking to Kelenli. When it becomes clear that the conductor has nothing more to say to me, I move behind Gaewha and begin plaiting some of her thick, poufy mane of hair. The conductors seem to like it when we do this, though I don’t really know why. One of them said that it was “cute” to see us taking care of one another, just like people. I’m not sure what cute means.
Meanwhile, I listen.
“Just doesn’t make sense,” Pheylen is saying, with a sigh. “I mean, the numbers don’t lie, but…”
“If you’d like to register an objection,” begins Kelenli. Her words fascinate me in a way that words never have before. Unlike the conductor, her voice has weight and texture, strata-deep and layered. She sends the words into the ground while she speaks, as a kind of subvocalization. It makes them feel more real. Pheylen, who doesn’t seem to notice how much deeper Kelenli’s words are – or maybe she just doesn’t care – makes an uncomfortable face in reaction to what she’s said. Kelenli repeats, “If you’d like to, I can ask Gallat to take me off the roster.”
“And listen to his shouting? Evil Death, he’d never stop. Such a savage temper he has.” Pheylen smiles. It’s not an amused smile. “It must be hard for him, wanting the project to succeed, but also wanting you kept – well. I’m fine with you on standby-only, but then I haven’t seen the simulation data.”
“I have.” Kelenli’s tone is grave. “The delay-failure risk was small, but significant.”
“Well, there you are. Even a small risk is too much, if we can do something about it. I think they must be more anxious than they’re letting on, though, to involve you —” Abruptly, Pheylen looks embarrassed. “Ah… sorry. No offense meant.”
Kelenli smiles. Both I and Gaewha can see that it is only a surface layering, not a real expression. “None taken.”
Pheylen exhales in relief. “Well, then, I’ll just withdraw to Observation and let you three get to know each other. Knock when you’re done.”
With that, Conductor Pheylen leaves the room. This is a good thing, because when conductors are not around, we can speak more easily. The door closes and I move to face Gaewha (who is actually cracked geode taste of adularescent salts, fading echo). She nods minutely because I have correctly guessed that she has something important to tell me. We are always watched. A certain amount of performance is essential.
Gaewha says with her mouth, “Coordinator Pheylen told me they’re making a change to our configuration.” With the rest of her she says, in atmospheric perturbations and anxious plucking of the silver threads, Tetlewha has been moved to the briar patch.
“A change at this late date?” I glance at the us-woman, Kelenli, to see if she is following the whole conversation. She looks so much like one of them, all that surface coloring and those long bones that make her a head taller than both of us. “Do you have something to do with the project?” I ask her, while also responding to Gaewha’s news about Tetlewha. No.
My “no” is not denial, just a statement of fact. We can still detect Tetlewha’s familiar hot spot roil and strata uplift, grind of subsidence, but… something is different. He’s not nearby anymore, or at least he’s not anywhere that is in range of our seismic questings. And the roil and grind of him have gone nearly still.
Decommissioned is the word the conductors prefer to use, when one of us is removed from service. They have asked us, individually, to describe what we feel when the change happens, because it is a disruption of our network. By unspoken agreement each of us speaks of the sensation of loss – a pulling away, a draining, a thinning of signal strength. By unspoken agreement none of us mentions the rest, which in any case is indescribable using conductor words. What we experience is a searing sensation, and prickling all over, and the tumbledown resistance tangle of ancient pre-Sylanagistine wire such as we sometimes encounter in our explorations of the earth, gone rusted and sharp in its decay and wasted potential. Something like that.
Who gave the order? I want to know.
Gaewha has become a slow fault ripple of stark, frustrated, confused patterns. Conductor Gallat. The other conductors are angry about it and someone reported it to the higher-ups and that’s why they have sent Kelenli here. It took all of us together to hold the onyx and the moonstone. They are concerned about our stability.
Annoyed, I return, Perhaps they should have thought of that before —
“I do have something to do with the project, yes,” interrupts Kelenli, though there has been no break or disruption of the verbal conversation. Words are very slow compared to earthtalk. “I have some arcane awareness, you see, and similar abilities to yours.” Then she adds, I’m here to teach you.
She switches as easily as we do between the words of the conductors and our language, the language of the earth. Her communicative presence is radiant heavy metal, searing crystallized magnetic lines of meteoric iron, and more complex layers underneath this, all so sharp-edged and powerful that Gaewha and I both inhale in wonder.