The Beaded Tapestry

Dear Victoria,

I have spent many hours considering the strange story of my abduction and incarceration on the ship orbiting the dead satellite.  During my few months here on the Phycodurus I have glimpsed both my captors among the inhabitants.  One of them, the man, is a member of the medical staff.  I have not been able to determine his position on the station, but he is of high rank according to his uniform.  I am cautious about asking for information about him or trying to glimpse into his records as this might bring his attention to my presence. So far I have seen no indication that he even acknowledges I exist. His role on the station does not seem to cross any path with mine or my work. The woman from the memory works in the behavior research department and I have been able to access her information with less notice because her division works along with several of my direct associates.  Her main role in the team is focused on research into New London native species and their adaptation to introduced foreign material, flora and fauna.  This also includes the disturbance to natural environments and climate shift caused by human interference over the occupied centuries. I suspect she is one of the driving members of the protest groups that fight against the use of New London as a research hub. I am questioning my conclusion since it is odd that she has such a prominent role here on the station, but I am still gathering proof of this assumption.  Of course this does not explain why I have a memory of the abduction or why I have such weird recollections of my time spent on their ship.  I get no indication from either of them that they know or acknowledge me. Indeed these thoughts take me back to your dream journal filled while you were ill in your first year on New London.  You eluded several times when you reviewed your writings that it seemed to be focused on the Equines past history; the vision of the creature’s emergence into the universe and its first encounter with mankind.  Could it have also the ability to impart future events into the minds of recipients? We always suspected the Equine was not a creature confined by time, but one existing outside those constraints.  Animate in all times at once with no forward or backwards, but only a mindful connection to all existing moments at once.  An entity that is present in every moment at once, experiencing all of time and space without limitations that require it to follow the flow, but can remain still as the waters of a lake, watching the passage of the universe around it. This is a fascinating but terrifying thought. It means at some time in my future, I will be whisked away off of the Phycoduras and deposited in a far off orbit to be interrogated.  I cannot even go to the security captain here on the station about this.  How insane will he think me if I related these fears? So I am telling you. Not to alarm or worry you, but as a precaution if (or when) something happens.  I will do as you did and write down everything I remember so if this is indeed a premature warning from the creature, you will have some knowledge about my whereabouts and the nature of my captivity.

Then there is the subject of the dark entity I encountered on the ship.  Are these memories being supplied by this creature?  Is it an aspect of the Equine we have not encountered before, or a whole new player? Is the Equine a creature of past and present, while there is a counter part that proposes the future? Sorry to go on and on with my musing and questions,  a harbinger with no definitive answers, but It would comfort me greatly if we could debate these points together.  I hate to think I am losing my grip on reason. I believe these same types of thoughts passed through your mind after reviewing your dream journal.  The similarities are a bit alarming.

Please do not let me ruin your time with Nikolaas.  Tell me all about your time together in your next letter and the things you have learned.  Do not leave out any of the delicious details about the creations you will be privileged to try. It will be a welcome distraction and remind me of what my real focus is here.

Love Annalis

Dear Annalis,

I look forward to reading your vision journals as you explore the new found relationship with the Equine.  I remember my brief time on the space station and realize how vastly different my response and experience is now on the planet surface.  Indeed the scans will be an interesting comparison, since we have both been on the station, but you have not yet visited the planet.  I have done some preliminary work this last year on my own brain chemistry changes, but the addition of your information after an extended stay in close proximity will be beneficial as a comparison. 

I am preparing to leave in a few days to meet Nikolaas in Newton.  Travel by geotrain will again be my mode of transport since it is both pleasant and practical.  Nikolaas has sent me a list of items he would like me to bring from the desert around my studio.  He will utilize these items in the seminar we will be attending.  I guess he has done some research ahead of time on the health and wellness benefits obtained from desert fauna and wants to get a head start in Newton under the direction of our host.  He also wants to use the extensive lab facilities of the institute where the seminar is being held. There are come analytical processes that require specific equipment that are not available to him at his facility.  His plan is to complete these analytics in parallel with the seminar.  I guess there are some major restrictions on the use of substances in his profession and he wants to be sure all the materials we will gather when he stays with me at my studio can be utilized when he returns to his home.  He will also need the official certifications from an accredited lab to ensure his offerings are aligned with the regulatory guidelines for food stuff. I forget sometimes how different or two professions are.  We are both artists, but I cannot poison anyone with my products.  I only hope I can find a sample of all the materials he has asked me to bring before my departure. Some of them I have not even heard of and did not know they could be found right under my nose. (or feet to be exact) Addison helped me with the majority of the list since he is more familiar with the terrain and local resources. I only have two items left to “gather”.  I could use Katryna’s help right about now. Unfortunately I still have not heard from her since my return from the research station.  The multiple messages I have sent to her family have gone unanswered.  I have also received no response to the messages left at the community hall in town.  Addison has also voiced concerns of her silence, but we do not have another avenue of communication to try. Her original lodgings are now occupied by someone else, with no message or forwarding instructions left with the proprietress.  If I do not hear anything before my return from Newton,  I may get the Louvre representative to look into it further.  This is a further difference from Earth that is very prevalent on New London.  It is possible to disappear into society here.  The close tracking done on Earth is not practiced here.  You could easily disappear off the radar, even if you do not want too. I miss Katryna’s inspiration and local knowledge. I just hope whatever is keeping her silent is of her own choosing.

Love Victoria 

Instrumental music traverses the inner dome of the chamber, sending waves of sound echoing in a circular pattern within the confined space.  Above the floating form, a transparent ceiling reveals the full unobstructed view of the swirling every changing spectacle above. The movement is mesmerizing: transfixing the watcher to give her full conscious thought to the display above. Innumerable shades coalesce and separate in a constant dance, accompanied and enhanced by the music piped into the chamber. The inner dome seems to come alive with images and visions which strangely prompt emotional responses with every particle placed within the array.  Colors combine and signals flash and dim to enhance the telling of the story.  The view slowly dissipates, shrinking to a minute point as the view port dilates closed, spiraling inward to shut out the storyteller. The music fad to silence and the floating figure is left alone in the complete isolated darkness.

Dear Victoria,

I have tried my best to describe the Equine isolation chamber.  It is by far the best way to give full control of my thoughts to the Equine influence.  It is also a struggle not to abuse this method. The sense of lose one feels when the aperture closes, cannot be described.  I feel the immediate need to restart the program and it requires all my will power to resist. I limit myself to one session a week in the isolation experience due to this overwhelming effect the connection to the Equine has on me.  It is very beneficial, do not get me wrong, but I feel my objectivity about the creature itself disappear completely after each session.  This loss of objectivity can last for several hours and I know it is not advantageous to my work to allow this complete immersion. The sustained feeling of complete agreement with the visions of the creature causes me to loss any objectivity. I must constantly remind myself that I am not in cohesion with the Equine, but trying to conduct a study from the outside, looking in.

My mental health does rejoice in this full isolated contact, thus I must find a balance between using the isolation chamber and detached monitoring/surveillance. In addition, there are only ten such isolation modules on the space station and with the majority of the fifteen hundred or so occupants of the Phycoduras wanting to utilize them at lease several times per 30 day cycle, there is a limit of availability. They are not only for the researchers use and time must be shared by all.  The Modules design is similar to the isolation chambers once used on Earth centuries ago for meditation and visionary purposes.  The main difference being visuals and sounds provided by the Equine, not to mention the weightlessness of space verses the floatation created by liquid used on Earth tanks. The module track is situated directly below my observation lab.  This deck of the station contains all the sensory study labs and research teams.  They have built these modules to face the full exposure of the Equine using the same special viewing material as my lab utilizes.  The tanks are equipped with suppression fields for the artificial gravity of the station so the movement and sensory input of the viewer is not hindered.  This allows full attention to the display from the Equine and the sounds produced by the interpretation team to translate the frequency signals transmitted by the creature. It may seem strange, but I feel as if I am being addressed directly by the creature when I am experiencing the chamber and not only viewing and hearing what the creature is displaying and telling everyone.  The more I dive into your letters and notes from your first year on New London, the more I find this idea to be a possibility.  It feels very egotistical to think the creature finds our mission so important that it is conversing with us directly, but I begin to believe this more and more as the week’s progress: Especially when I think back to my missing three months.  

In my next letter I will relate a vision I had last week while in the equine module, along with a similar experience a month before my arrival on the Phycoduras.  It should solidify my statement even to the most skeptical reader.

Love Annalis

Dear sister,

Reciprocal space…that strange uncanny ability of matter to transform itself from real to a Fourier reflection of reality.  This is how I sometimes view the life I live within such close proximity to the Equine. Daily life is confined and astern, with no inclusion of green comforts except the occasional visit to the conservatory. Then there are the encounters with the Equine, both in reality and in a dream state.  These are the saving experiences of my life.  These encounters overshadow the more mundane occurrences and I try to give priority to the effects these occasions evoke in me.  Much as flaws on a microscopic level chose to perform magic when no one is looking, I try and focus on the magic reflection of my existence and not the steel grey reality of daily station life. The recall of the dream encounters with the Equine does not always include all the details, but I try to find meaning and understanding in the memories that are available after awakening so I can use this content to push me through the tedium and depression that threaten to overtake me at times.

Since you are now in close proximity to me, your presence in my dreams has diminished to almost nothing.  Sometimes I recall a dim memory of your infrequent dream visit, but upon awakening the memory is not retrievable.  Only a vague emotional shadow of joy or sadness lingers, screaming out for response.  I am not sure what this means.  I guess because I now have the ability to reach out to you with the anticipation of a timely response, this negates the need for your nightly visits and reassurance from your dream self.  I strongly wish I have both personas available from you, but I prefer the former since it is really you and not a manifestation (refection) of you in my mind.

On the other hand, my Equine encounters have been vivid and when I awaken, I quickly put pen to paper to record these recollections in detail and accuracy. These recordings have provided a fascinating study into the creature itself, but also into my own state of mind.  I can already glimpse the changes in me now that the full effects of the Equine are available.  I am compiling these dreams and musings into a single file every thirty days and will send each of them to you after my analyses of the brain waves during that period are complete.  In parallel I am also keeping a daily journal of mood, health,  mental cognition and nutritional intake to provide supplemental data. It will be beneficial to our research to correlate the state of the unconscious mind to the cognizant mind when it is first introduced to the Equine influence. Also we can perform a comparison of your first year to mine.  This will illuminate the difference between planetary exposure and near proximity, undistorted exposure.

The last part of the puzzle will be the lab study journal I am preparing and the data from the instruments monitoring the creature. Later we can match these with your first years statistics on New London.  This will give us the differences both in time and space of the planetary exposure and station exposure.  We may need to decide if the final rendition needs to spend an extended period on the space station once it is complete.

I look forward to your account of the visit with Nicolaas.  I find myself thinking off and on of the meals you described in your letters when you visited him at this retreat.  Now you get to experience once again the provender he is famous for. I hope it turns out as enjoyable as you remember.  Please write back and tell me all about it.  I will read it with envy as I consume my space station fare.  (no insult to Chef Emilia’s kitchen intended, but she has a limited variety to work with)

I am working on a full narrative of my missing time before my arrival at the Phycoduras.  I neglected to recall how time consuming the scribing of our secret language was when I suggested using this method of communication.   Give me a bit more time before I can share it.  I am sure you want it to be legible.  You know how terrible my handwriting can be.

Love Annalis

Dear Annalis,

Such lovely visions you have of my world.  The heat, dust and poncho are accurate, but sadly the clouds and breeze are absent over the last weeks.  I would welcome even a whisper of cloud cover during my frequent traverses through the desert; daily excursions in search of the elusive alternative materials to add to the constituents I imported from Earth.  I am now down to only two essential materials in my search for replacements, but the shale stone and clove oil will be the hardest to source locally.  I have searched all the reference material I have access to and completed a local search of the desert for alternatives, but there seems to be no native choices here.  Since the clove oil was one of the essential cross functional sense materials, I will need to use the imported stock I brought with me.  It may end up as one of the ten percent non-native material I will have to incorporate into the piece.  The Shale will be easier.  I am already working on some ideas.

Thank you for the information you shared about the ten year minimum exposure.  It was something I already suspected, but it confirms my decision to limit the additions of my Earth imports and use as much native material as possible.  It would have been nice to know this information when we were making the preparation on Earth, but that cannot be helped.  This information was probably only known to the researchers in the vicinity of the Equine.  It is such a new area of study.  I wish again that the secrecy that surrounds the Equine exploration was not so well kept.  Competition and security risks lead to all types of roadblocks in discovery when information is not shared freely.  How many people have spent years scrutinizing something that has already been discovered, but kept secret for financial gain?  How many people have died due to this subterfuge? I guess the nature of humanity will never change. 

On the subject of subterfuge, I do remember our codex carved within the secret tree of knowledge.  I brought a facsimile with me that I had long ago engraved myself as a memento of that summer we spent in the black forest with our family.  I had forgotten all about it.  Let us try and revitalize our secret language and see how it goes.  Then you can explain the cryptic three months of your journey.

I know you are not sure what was real or what was induced by your illness from the stasis, but just describe your experience.  I discern from your letters that a whole different chain of events occurred during those lost months.  Sometimes events during an illness can be enlightening.  Remember my Equine journal during my bout with desert fever.  Without these written mementos I could never have discovered the true origin of our anomaly.  I believe what happened to you actually occurred, but maybe they haven’t transpired yet.  See, I can also be cryptic and mysterious with my messages. After you send me an overview of your adventures, I will explain this comment and my theory about out of time experiences and their relationship to the Equine.

I hope you can decipher the last paragraph.  It is my first attempt to write in our archaic language after twenty years.

Love Always,

Victoria

The dragon is finished. Now I need to think how to display it.

Shadows traverse across the desert, bringing fleeting relief from the heat.  The clouds sojourn is brief, as the full blaze of the solar body returns to bake the sand and body.  The figure shades her eyes to gaze out at the treeless plain, dotted here and there with browning vegetation and spindly succulents. The hot breeze kicks up dust as the shadow of the cloud moves down the desert valley, lifting the edges of the light poncho draped over the solitary figure, coating her exposed skin with grit.  Drying the dust and perspiration off her forehead with a delicate handkerchief, the figure starts her descent into the arid lands in search of inspiration.

Dear Victoria,

Here I share a beautiful vision of you in your current environment.  I spend many hours imagining what your world is like.  The blazing sun, warm star filled nights and desert thunderstorms fill my waking dreams as I sit day in and day out in the sterile, never changing environment of the space station.  Granted there are many benefits to my close proximity to the Equine, but I so miss the touch of nature and the changing of the elements.  Only even if it is in my dreams and imagination,  a visit with you is always welcomed.

I have approached the Louvre representative on the possibility of accelerating my schedule to visit New London.  The initial response is negative, but this was expected, since my reasoning for this request was not completed argumentative. This is logical since I myself am not completely clear on the full reason for my request.  I also hesitate to disclose the exact nature of my concern, since I question now the legitimacy of my experience over the last months and who exactly was responsible; And even if it happened! This led to a not very convincing argument to visit the planet almost a year ahead of schedule. With the denial of the accelerated planet visit in mind, I will try and discover another way to share my current concerns with you. There must be a secure way we can communicate without risk of even corporate interference.  Let me think how creative I can get without needing your cryptic methods. We might even utilize something as insane as our childhood archaic language which even father could not decipher. 

On another note, I have news from the material lab about Equine influenced substances.  Although not related to bees and their product, the lab is very involved in all things silk.  Specifically from silk worms and their New London counterparts, the Britannia silk spider. Arachnids are not my favorite subject,  but a discussion I had with one of the lab technicians over dinner shed some light, not only on his fascination with this native of the planet,  but also on how a migrant population responds to exposure to the Equine.  The immigrant silk worm population, he told me, was established ten years ago.  At this point, their produced material is approaching the same level of Equine remnants as the native arachnid silk. This gives an indication of how long some species need to be on New London before their produced material molecularly matches the material from the native population.  Of course there are deviations in this time frame from species to species, but spiders and bees are closer genetically than say ants and bovine.  Not totally good news seeing as we need new material immediately under the full influence of the Equine, but this does support your hypothesis that the new rendition must be completed with a majority of native planet based material.  I am still very hopeful for the future success of my traveling companions and Simona’s project, but with the two year cap on our project, we will need to consider this.  I will keep you posted on anything else I “overhear” as I dine among my fellow Phycodurians.  I will also let you know as soon as my brain figures out our cryptic communication puzzle. Do you still remember the key to our language?  Think it over. It was carved somewhere in the journeys of our childhood.  

Love Annalis

New dragon project! They always make me happy. Not sure what the finished project will be.

The amulet bag is complete.