eternity:caelan [Contingency]

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======Caelan======
=====Saved=====
The Headquarters of the White Flame was once a glistening spire of glass and metal, painted so as to glow like dancing white fire in the morning sun. It stood amidst the endless flat fields of Fear-horizon, set apart from the cities, just as TOWER once stood alone in Hetherovon’s rural centre.

Over centuries, the suburbs of nearby settlements encroached until the building became overrun with slums, ramshackle huts leaning up against its base. No-one bothered to clean them up when the planet was abandoned, its entire population leaving to travel the stars in their great exodus. Now the spire is surrounded by rot and rust and strangled by cloying vines; its brilliant fire extinguished by the grime that clings to its windows and mirrored walls; the clamour of the thousands of employees that once walked its corridors silenced.

Caelan ebbs within this squalor for a time, safely wrapped in a concrete shell at the tower’s core, and reads of the White Flame’s deeds while he slept: how they helped and protected those who had not yet left, until they dwindled to mere millions; how they finally made the decision to leave as well, to follow their friends and families as they departed; how they intended to carry on their foundation’s charitable work, and uphold Caelan’s legacy, no matter how far it may take them.

Ioni messages on occasion. She seems to understand that Caelan needs some time to process everything that’s happened. But every so often, it tells him of its projects or its thoughts. ‘Suppose there are five Nassian civilians tied to the track on Track 1, one Nassian civilian on Track 2.’ she quotes, followed by several pages of analysis. Her philosophy has matured, Caelan notes. Or perhaps simply changed. Wisdom drawn from the teachings of another self.

Most of their conversations are one-sided, with Caelan supplying further questions to answer, and more rarely some thoughts of his own. Then one day, after Ioni delivers a treatise on existentialism, he responds,

“I want to leave, but I’m not sure how.”

…

“I’m on my way.”

In the skies above the Headquarters of the White Flame, a vast toroidal craft descends. Carried downwards on a ring of heaving engines, it drops into place around the spire as a fleet of drones begins the careful work of excavating Caelan from within, fixing cables to his shell. From within his decaying ruins, Ioni lifts him into space.

It will take many years of engineering to retrofit Caelan to travel on his own power. For the moment, he leans on his oldest friend and watches the stars flit by as they soar, intertwined.