Tonespace: The Space of Energy (The Metaspace Chronicles Book 3) by Kennedy Matthew

Author:Kennedy, Matthew [Kennedy, Matthew]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2016-01-19T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 48

Rainsong: A Journey Continues

“No matter how long the winter, spring is sure to follow.”

– Guinean Proverb

“Your name is Rainsong,” they told her. That was back when she was only a million spins into her latest cycle. She had barely assimilated the first universal memsphere, the one that taught youngsters the language of the People, so it did not occur to her, then, to ask how they knew her name when she didn't. One name was as good as another to a youngster. She exulted in the freedom of the recently-reborn, leaping and darting among the trees of this place called Nav Section.

Later, she asked about her name. After letting her sleep curled around a Tech memsphere, they explained to her about the cloning process that had grown the latest version of her body.

She felt amazement. “But...but I thought I was born in the, the natural way,” she said, as chromatophores in her skin dilated, making her blush the brown of trunk-concealment.

No, she was told, the crew had made many sacrifices for the Mission, but giving up their very being, their unique genetic codes, was not one of those sacrifices. Every crew member retained his or her original body in each cycle. Ordinary breeding would have produced individuals not necessarily as suitable for the Mission as the original crew, and so they had designed an alternative that preserved the original crew complement exactly. Those who had demonstrated particular aptitude for certain specializations were given the same sequence of instructional memspheres each time they were reborn; the rest were cycled through various occupations determined by the Monitors based on the current distribution of skillsets in the adults and which were projected to retire during the youth of the individual youngsters.

“Why didn't I remember my name? Why did you have to tell me?”

“You will,” the Mentor who had helped her out of the learning sleep-pod told her, “when you are ready to access your personal memsphere, the one recorded before your last body died. you'll remember choosing your name back on Homeworld, and all the other memories you decided to keep.”

So she was Rainsong. What a funny name! Her thoughts were darting around like crunchies, but at least her skin had stopped blushing. “Back on Homeworld? We aren't on Homeworld now?”

“No, we are on the Ship,” he told her, patiently.

He was pretty nice, for an oldster, she thought. “What do you do?”

“I used to be a Navigator, when I was younger. Now that my replacement is old enough, though, I'm retired from that, and I help out as a Mentor.”

She had to ask. “What's a Mentor?”

“Long ago, before the coming of the Meddlers,” he informed her, “there were no memspheres to store our knowledge and give it to youngsters like you. Back then everything one of the People needed to learn was taught to them by a Mentor. For example, in ages past we lost a lot of youngsters who didn't know which organisms were good to eat and which were poisonous, so the Mentors taught them, to avoid more losses.

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