Canticle Blue

16. Clues

Music - Turning: Turning Back by Alex de Grassi

The evening meeting was held in the artifact room. Before it started, the pendant Havilan and had found was passed around to give everyone a second look. Cian was the first to speak.

"Tor and I pulled up quite a few tiles in the water tunnel—they're a lot larger up there —and cleaned about forty feet of the main channel. We think we increased water flow by about twenty percent, so we're on the right track. Our silt catchers did a good job too.  There's a lot more work to be done, but we're encouraged. We found a sizable piece of R-type that might have been part of the pumping mechanism at one time. Pulling it out of the sand increased the current considerably. I'm going to pass it around now, and then we'll put it on a shelf with the other samples. If it feels too heavy, just turn it over," she kidded. "Annibet and Os found a few pieces of R- type in the Great-Room siftings too."

Geddes was next. "I can't thank you guys enough for your hard work today. I think you'll find that you created your own reward. The north channel in the Great Room is clear now, for all intents and purposes, and we even made some headway on the south one. Os and Tor are making improved silt barriers for the water tunnel as we speak and could have them finished by tomorrow. After that we can start putting the floor tiles back in the north channel to retain heat.

"Syl and I worked on, and in, the 'Women's Room' pool, and we think you'll be surprised at how things are looking in there. She says we could even use the pool for a swimming party tonight—bless her relentless optimism. It is warming up in there, though, or maybe we were just working too hard. For sure the water is warmer and cleaner.

"Incidentally, Annibet checked the water quality above the waterfall area this afternoon and thinks we could drink it if we wanted to. But she feels the caldera lake is a safer source for now. She also says that the temperature in the Great Room is measurably  higher now than anything we've seen since we got here.

"The pool is filling pretty quickly, but won't be completely full by tonight. For those of you who want to swim, we know that any suits we can find aren't going to make any fashion statements; but maybe they'll make up for that in flotation. We've already moved some of the camp chairs and tables in there. The washroom on that side, though, will be reserved for the women, as they'll be using it for personal needs and for hanging clothes to dry.

"Havilan wants so say a few words about the pendant."

As Elyse took the team logbook from him, Havilan stood up. "The pendant we found, except for its size and certain modifications, is very similar to a well-known kind of Per'sa accessory.  To me, this one speaks more of function than adornment though.  I don't know what that function would be, but I can describe the meanings of its symbols and text." He held up the pendant . "As you can see, it's basically oval shaped, except for these crossed spars. The wide horizontal line running through the center of its length represents time, or in modern terms, space-time. The smaller sea-glass arrangements are intended to be candles." He pointed to one of them. "The candle with the blue flame at this end of the time line, represents the beginning of creation and the presence of God at that time. The red-flamed candle on the other end symbolizes the presence of God at the end of time. The lavender mist-flower in the middle of the time line—notice that its petals extend well outside of it—represents life, including the Per'sa people. The gold ellipse surrounding the time line signifies eternity, and the candle with the amber flame there represents God in eternity." As he showed them the obverse, he said, "the translation of the text here is, very likely, 'End-Stone.'

"I want to add that, from everything I know about the Per'sa, this pendant wouldn't be regarded by them as having any kind of special spiritual power. God was their source of power and provision. The pendants were normally celebratory faith statements first and personal adornments second.