A bit over three years of my own (and The Collector's) relative time, several near design disasters and several hammer-smashed thumbs later and Vanishing Point II (I'm going to stop with the pretentious "II". It just annoys me) is up and running and accessible by the Time Lords and Ladies of New Gallifrey.
The station's A.I. (whom I have named Isaac) keeps the stations systems running well, though I do need to tweak his interpersonal systems a bit.
As fresh and clean and new and shiny as the station is, I will admit, it doesn't yet feel like home.
It will take time, I suppose.
In other news.... Bloody Earth culture... Not sure why it invades my vernacular so often. As far as I remember, I've only been there a few times...
Regardless.
Aside from the completion of Vanishing Point, I have also been attempting to build a few bridges with the government of New Gallifrey. Since I'm technically a part of it, I suppose it's time I start living up to that responsibility.
I sent a hyper-cube to the Gold Usher and now.... Pythia? (I may have been a member of the Jade Dreamers in the past, but I never did get the hang of the mystic side of them. Not sure I ever will) inviting her to have a kind of... satellite office... on Vanishing Point, since, even though the station is the Patrexe chapter house, it is still New Gallifreyan soil.
This morning, I received the following reply:
Lady Pythiaremystrætoriaquintafeiraiovisea
Gold Usher to the High Council of Time Lords
Great Mother and High Cardinal to the Chapterhouse of Jade Dreamers
Office of Gold Usher
The Panopticon
City of Lethe
New Gallifrey
19/04/16
T-T Capsule Comm: rowan.thursday
Lord Akbalrajulbindarkowaritalsahib
Commanding Officer and Governor of Vanishing Point
High Cardinal to the Chapterhouse of Patrexes
Vanishing Point Temporal Station
My Lord High Cardinal,
Formally, as Gold Usher of the Panopticon, I express that body's congratulations to you on the timely re-establishment of your Chapterhouse. A polite nothing you might think, but on deeper consideration a thought perhaps to be re-evaluated. We are both, in a sense, Housekeeper and mouthpiece to the sentient architecture, and such architecture is perforce symbolically attuned to its nestlings. The Citadel of the people of New Gallifrey greets its kin restored.
I am sorry that my warning words did not altogether preserve the folk of your Chapter from harm. What could be said, was said. Relations between my Chapter and yours have been wary for some time, since before you joined it. Did I not prophesy once that you had a long journey to take? The shadow of that future which you fear has overcast much. You must know, I think, that your own fate is uncertain but still in jeopardy - indeed I do not see your path ahead clearly. There are roads ahead which lead to ruin, others which seem brighter, but whether or which among they point to absolution from your blighted destiny, or merely postponement; no prophecy yet says. Perhaps you will think that that is well. What manner of man would choose to know the hour, minute, and manner of his final dissolution unto dust? Only he who would seek to cheat the clock - and that man stands thricefold slain, in some secret vault. Seek not his road, my friend!
Let us turn now from this dreary matter, upon which it is no hard thing to say too much.
Upon the matter of representation and access to the ceremonial rites, aboard Vanishing Point, I gratefully accept your invitation and concur, it would be appropriate that the Ceremonial Office of Registry, over which my state office administrates, should have some representation, in a sizeable community of ordained citizens such as yours. The Wild Cat is a K-Series Mobile Administrative Domicile - limited sentience, but she will serve perfectly appropriately in both spatial and secretarial terms as the representative facility of the Office of Gold Usher aboard Vanishing Point, if you are satisfied with her conduct. Please don't be overly surprised if she takes on the form of one of your private collection of vintage craft before too long - her neural matrix is young, and her chameleon circuit instincts seem to have a passion for discretion and propriety that befits this department almost to the point of parody. I occasionally suspect Nereid of spreading a certain subversive influence around the department's technology; it's the sort of thing she would find amusing. In any event, all being well I shall arrive personally to ensure that the Wild Cat has settled herself in and ordered herself appropriately, once time permits me absence from certain other duties.
In turn, I should like to formally extend to the kith and kin of your House and Chapter, and to yourself, invitation to attend the rites of the Sabbath of Beltane, held within the Sanctum of the House of Jade Dreamers, at month's end. You are aware I think, of certain legal penalties under House Law, which did hang upon you should you enter that jurisdiction, following your enforced departure therefrom. To claim that all is forgiven and forgot would be folly; the wise do not forget their lessons, and to forgive implies a prior intent of vengeance, whilst, in truth, who may yet know the measure of the threat we both guard against - least of all yourself, perhaps? Yet Beltane is a festival of energy and rebirth, new life - indeed the root in ancient tongue, belátanna, bears striking similarities to the Old High derivation væillattanü , that is, 'regeneration', and old soup should not be retained ever more unconsidered.
At my invitation you may enter in safety and with the surety of the word of the Pythia that such ongoing legal ramifications, rather than yourself, if you will forgive the pun, will be suspended in consequence, and that the watchful vigilance of the House shall preserve all as it should be.
Though Lords of Time, we can none of us erase that which is already written upon the passages of the celestial clock; nor unwind the centuries until those days ere the old Panopticon fell - or since blood and false nobility tore down the House of Prydon and set in motion this change in all our fates- but we may, I think, indeed, I believe it is the very purpose of the Great Discourse of the Titans, which is history, that we must learn from each turn of the wheel; for what is Time, but that we bear witness and set order upon it? The Wild Hunt is nothing without reason, experience, and understanding- its counterpoints and paramours in the Great Work.
Yours Sincerely,
High Cardinal Pythiaremystrætoriaquintafeiraiovisea
Gold Usher
Is she up to something?
I really don't know. She's always been inscrutable.
But I do know I will be welcomed to participate in the Beltane rite without being obliterated.
Or imprisoned.
Or forced to dance the Daltharan Polka for six thousand years.
That's something, anyway.
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