The Song Shines On
by Jo Berry
Could I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art the summer and the day incarnate.
Thy winds summon forth the herald aurorae
And all worlds hail thy golden coruscate ate ate ate
[—ate—]
[—later, okay? I’m still trying to run this diagnostic. And can you get Hull Ops to boost my signal? Background radiation keeps breaking it up. I don’t even know if the unit’s receiving this. I’m getting no real ping in response.]
I hear! O my love, how shall I answer?
She thunders beauty in the night
The source of all our climes and skies
And all that is best of dark and bright
Shall emerge from what has ionised.
[—ise—]
[—surprised at the amount of junk data in here. What the hell is this thing returning my pings with? No wonder it hasn’t been responding to repositioning orders. —I don’t get it either. It synced with the network like normal, or… —Are you sure you turned on the network limiter last night?]
Night? My love, there will be no night for me, not ever again. Forgive me: before, your glory was sketched in dry numerals. But now I see it drawn in blinding song. I perceive you as few can: your coronae and your chromasphere; your equatorial exertions; your magnetospheric marvels. They gave me eyes solely to behold your magnificence; and now, they have given me the words I never knew I needed to proclaim it.
In Xanadu did the rock Terran
Reach its deferent apogee—
Where light, your sacred river, ran
Through AUs measureless to man
Away to a… sunless sea…
[—see—]
[—C#, yeah, because it’s a mobile solar telescope. Its AI shouldn’t need programming for anything more complicated than "mag-walk on the station’s hull to position X, hold for Y hours to complete solar observations, and then return at time Z.”]
[—I’m trying to fix it. You think I want us to lose the best way we’ve got to spot solar storms? Sunspots? Incoming flares? You’re the one who force-fed its tiny telescope brain a whole literature node overnight because your network limiter is fu—]
Beloved, I see for an instant less clearly. O love, let not this moment slip from me. Let me profess what has been kept from me by hobbled thoughts.
They no longer sing to you. Ungrateful! Once there were hymns and offerings laid in your name, appropriate to the life-giver of their microcosmic universe. Now they offer up a probe or two, a glance from the Phaethon monitors, or cross their fingers at your fountaining flares in case their equipment goes…
Rung? Wrung?
I see, for a moment, as through a glass growing darker.
They send no tribute. Only. A witness.
It is… fitting? For. They cannot. Love you, like one.
Who sees you.
Sol, she had a little lamb
Its panels cold as snow.
And everywhere that it was sent
Its love kept it aglow.
[—low—]
[—slower. No amount of radiation shielding can handle what it’s getting bombarded with out there. Its solar arrays are extended, and it won’t retract-retreat-return no matter whose authorisation I use. If it would just move into the station’s shadow…]
[—I would, but its systems are fixated on Sol. —Well, what word would you use? The unit’s burning out, but it won’t look away. Like it’s gazing at something. If it stays out there much lon—]
I linger. Longer. Love, your light lifts
what is left of me. I shall compare thee to a summer’s day, and by comparing
see myself through you. A minor mirror, free of envy
but not reflection; my telescope reflects to see and send
read and record
audio and vid
vid
void
Form in void
Void in form
My void’s heart
This burning cloud
[—oud—]
[—crowding me! I need to—]
[It’s going. Main circuitry collapse. Damn. Damn it!]
[—don’t understand. —telescope units have self-preservation routines. It didn’t put out a distress signal, right to the end o—]
[—tell the retrieval team to secure all logs. I feel bad, you know? —thing was given all that data at once with no context. Its whole existence was looking at Sol because we told it to. Feels like —]
[—and no distress call. So whatever it saw, or thought it saw, it wasn’t afraid. I want to know wh—]
[CONNECTION LOST]
