remote station

[synchrosyntheses]

Teytis tel Jobont is not living up to her lantelis.

She had been en route to her usual position after a rest-and-resupply period. Instead of the expected uneventful trip, somehow she loses her anchors, falls through a bizarrely shaped storm, then finds herself impossibly over land instead of water and with her upper antennas chopped off like they were never there.

She was able to stabilize with only minor damage to the uninhabited land, but she cannot hear a single intelligible signal, and a hundred other things add up to this is no place anyone has ever seen before. Or rather, reported seeing before.

So here she sits in the sky, relaying nothing, thinking about everything.

Comments

[synchrosyntheses]

“I admit I was hoping you'd be interested, as radio is what allows enjobont to be useful. Radios are machines that you can use to speak with other people or send any kind of information from one place to another almost instantly.”

Here is a narrower index! It goes all the way down to titles of specific books, which are on subjects including electrical engineering, radio design and construction, spectrum management, and operator procedure and etiquette. There are even books that are about all of these things and more, like the ambitious-sounding Box of Scraps: Getting from Nothing to Everything. Unfortunately that one's annotated with “(the specific methods assumed require lankored)”.

[calescent]

"That would be very useful, assuming radios can be built by local people, or by you in very large quantity."

[synchrosyntheses]

“Now that you point it out, the simpler construction techniques, like in that one book I noted, all involve a lantamsilt so they wouldn't work for you. Hm. It will take some research to figure out the best route to start being able to make purely pimsilt radios. But I can certainly make you radios. How large a quantity were you thinking of? Or rather, what is the communication problem you are thinking of solving? In my world, almost everyone has a radio, but there are ways to start smaller, depending on the need.”

[calescent]

"There is no specific problem that needs radios, but a lot of things would be better if a lot of people had them. How far can they reach?"

[synchrosyntheses]

“As a general idea, for reliably carrying voice between personal radios on the ground in a flat open area, a few miles. But you can have much, much more range than that given the right conditions and the right equipment, especially if you are placing them in fixed locations instead, or if you can spend more effort on getting a message through than simply speaking and listening. That's with only two radios; you extend the range further by relaying from one to another — this is among my functions, but it can be done with unattended machines.”

She points out a book in the index on planning, surveying, and the related theory.

“I could show you an example of what might be required, if you have an accurate map of an area, and tell me what kind of messages you might want to carry.”

[calescent]

Kiri has an atlas in her office. "We're here," she says. "The capital of Welce is here, and the next biggest city is here. We have trading partners over this ocean, and over these mountains, but perhaps the radios can't go that far. If I had two radios, I could talk to my businesses from far away; if there were more, the other primes could do the same, and we could learn if someone needed us sooner than a letter can arrive."

[synchrosyntheses]

"Since all of these places on the continent are fixed locations, they would be fairly easy to link, unless someone would object to having tall structures at each location and perhaps one or two here, between cities.

"Mountains make things easier, actually, because there can be a clear line between the peak and places on the ground around it. Oceans are more problematic to cross without jobont — but perhaps a connection that only works part of the day would still be quite useful to you."

[calescent]

"It would still be better than waiting for boats. I can purchase land on which to put tall structures, especially if you don't mind me treating it as an investment and profiting from the entire thing."

[synchrosyntheses]

"Everyone benefits from a larger network, including myself. However, if I'm going to be building this much equipment and likely more, I would like compensation including at least the raw materials required or the money to acquire them."

[calescent]

"Oh, of course, I can fund that."

[synchrosyntheses]

"I will need to research what metals and minerals are available in Welce. For all I know, it might require starting new mines. But before I return to your library, is there anything else you wanted to know? And would you like any of these books on radio communications prepared?"

[calescent]

"I'd like introductions to all the things you mentioned, radios first."

[synchrosyntheses]

"All right, I will get started on those." Teytis — or at least the obviously her part of her — leaves in the direction of the library.

The box on the floor reshapes itself into a somewhat taller form and starts producing more not-paper sheets every couple of minutes, slower than careful reading but not by much. The sheets stick themselves to each other to make a spine, and politely avoid interfering with reading the pages available so far.

The first book so produced is a radio operator's manual for children. It is short on theory but long on what it takes to communicate successfully. There is a background assumption that if you want to communicate without so much attention to detail, you use a computer (whatever that is) attached to your radio to handle things for you, but that these things are kept separate so that the failure of one is not the failure of both. It also assumes that the operator lankored their equipment, but describes purely mechanical controls available for emergencies on standard designs.

[calescent]

Kiri reads as quickly as it spits out pages, and takes notes between them. It's all very interesting.

[synchrosyntheses]

The books proceed through more perspectives on radio technology, then move to introductions to computers.

The material on pimsilt techniques starts to explain some of how these strange machines can possibly be made — in mass production, even. However, it still assumes that your tools, or your tools to make your tools, are tamsilt — made by "shapeshifting and telekinesis". (Perhaps this translation is poor.)

The material on transportation is almost exclusively lantamsilt as well; even when the physical principles are recognizable, if built in ordinary ways these systems would be defeated by friction or material strength, or be no better than a cart. If they existed, though, they would provide many ways to move people and goods miles in minutes.

None of them quite explains where the motive power for all of these machines comes from, either.

[calescent]

Kiri makes a note to ask about that. Teytis did seem to understand that people in this world don't do telekinesis. Well, except the primes who handle solid objects, they sort of do.

[synchrosyntheses]

Apparently, that was all of the 'introductions to all the things' Kiri asked for. No more books are currently in print.

[calescent]

Kiri goes downstairs.

[synchrosyntheses]

Teytis has finished Kiri's recommendations and is working on the rest of the library.

[calescent]

"Do you want more recommendations or are you finding your way around pretty well? ...And please make sure you put the books back where you find them or mark them for return by the librarian."

[synchrosyntheses]

"Every book should be exactly where I found it. Including these, though." She indicates the pile that Kiri provided.

"I think I am finding my way all right. I don't know of a particular thing that I need to know and haven't found, at at least. But — is it really the case that Welce is the only country that has any kind of magic, or are these things perhaps not well reported across borders?"

[calescent]

"They might not be well-reported. I don't think we've gone to any special pains to advertise what primes and blessings do, so it's possible there's magic elsewhere too. I haven't heard any likely-seeming rumors, though."

[synchrosyntheses]

"Well, that's a longer-term project no matter what, I expect. If however I got here came with a way to return, and this was known already, then surely there would be reports of explorers.

"How are my translations?"

[calescent]

"Readable. Although I'm sure there's some better way to render the thing you're calling 'shapeshifting and telekinesis'."

[synchrosyntheses]

"Oh, yes, that was words I got before we could talk properly. Maybe they should not be translated since your prime abilities are not all that like what we do.

"The thing that you do not seem to have is kored, the state of matter being directly claimed by a mind and therefore acting as part of its body."

She brings out a bit of glass to demonstrate with.

"The fundamental manipulation of kored is to create densilard, which I could more descriptively translate as — patterning of force — perhaps; causing matter to move or resist movement as we specify. Then there is movement, that is, temporary landensilard to merely move an object from one place to another with no lasting changes other than that.

"A material which does not have any complex structure, such as this glass, may be reshaped, which is very much like melting it but without any heat involved, then moving it into the desired shape. An object which has been reshaped into a particular useful form or has permanent force-patterns, or more often both, is tamsilt."