Yes. She.
Lucy had been noting the span of the chisel marks, the lay of the plane. This was a woman’s work. Of course, she could not be sure, but the thought of someone making a violin a world away, who was also not a son, made her feel a little less alone.
Carefully, deliberately, Lucy continued to contour, refine, and rebuild Katrina’s violin. The work was intricate; each individual change altered the entire violin.
The stench of hide glue made her retch, and each spill burned and blistered her skin. But there was no other option; nothing was a better match for the wood.
And finally, refinishing. Oil varnish was the most conservative choice, but that would take months and sunlight to cure. A spirit varnish could be completed in a week, but spirit varnish could be overbearing and clumsy.
Many luthiers cautioned against refinishing. They said varnishes were often secret blends that could not be duplicated. But her grandfather insisted that they said this because these pretenders were not Matías.
In her break times, Lucy researched Chinese violin workshops. She had been correct about carpenters—although China had its award-winning luthiers, a factory violin would likely be made by someone trained in making cabinetry.
She imagined a Chinese woman a world away, carving, shaping, clamping. She was not trained in Cremona, nor anywhere in Europe, yet her hands knew exactly what they were doing.
And no one said they must belong to a son.
Lucy closed her computer. Rest came easily to her eyes.
* * *
Explosions. Fire, so much fire. Screaming.
No! She had to save them, she had to …
Lan shook herself awake.
Another nightmare. She picked up her phone.
“Markus?”
“Yes, Captain?”
“Everything all right?”
“Yes, Captain. Uh … is that it?”
“You and your sister be careful, okay?”
“Yes, Captain.”
The Trans did most of their building and testing late into the night, when a sudden power spike would not burn out the city’s power grid.
Windee and Markus were reinforcing and calibrating the donut, since plaster of Paris, chicken wire, and concrete were not strong enough to bind the space-time continuum.
Of course, the outside appearance would remain that of a giant donut, but the internal structure needed to be precisely tuned to resonate with the warp filaments and project a harmonious warp field.
In the laboratory, Shirley carefully tuned the warp filaments. The glowing filaments were not merely woven matter; within their cores they held slender strands of space-time in a precise array of thicknesses, spins, and tensions. It was exacting work, but Shirley’s work was already as good as Lan’s—maybe even a little more precise.
Meanwhile, Aunty Floresta and Edwin puttered about in the kitchen. Although the replicators could copy Thamavuong donuts with virtually perfect control and precision, she and Edwin kept trying to master the kitchen and even create recipes of their own.
Lan shrugged. Neither Aunty Floresta nor Edwin had the skills to assist with the critical work, so this was a good way for them to keep busy. Overall, the crew was settling into a predictable routine. No worries. No surprises.
Yet Lan’s nightmares would not go away.
And it was more than nightmares. Somehow, even on this remote backwater planet, the Endplague seemed always around the corner, beneath the surface, lurking in the periphery.
Lan watched a customer place a quarter into a Stargate machine. It was a hopelessly primitive game where the fighter shot various aliens and mutants while rescuing helpless humans. Early on, she noticed that in this Stargate video game, once a player finished a mission, the next one would start automatically.
At first, the game would increase in difficulty and variety, but past a certain point, it merely kept repeating. And repeating, with no change, no hope for growth nor any way to escape.
Thus, everyone who played was destined to lose, either from fatigue or resignation.
As crude as it was, this game was an uncanny simulation of the Endplague.
Lan saw no reason why such a game would be appealing. In fact, due to its dangerous subject matter, such a game in the Empire might even be prohibited.
Yet here, in a donut shop on El Monte, three vintage Stargate machines were almost constantly in play, providing Starrgate Donut with a steady stream of quarters, from 6 A.M. to 2 A.M., seven days a week.
Why would they even create such a game? These creatures hadn’t yet discovered faster-than-light travel, let alone formed any sort of interstellar civilization.
Then again, for their technological level, this planet possessed an astonishing information network. It was actually fascinating. She had never encountered a planet that invested so much of its technology into communication.