11 Coloine

Kathana almost done, according to Vorantor, not that anyone else would know because he’s keeping it all to himself. Some argument today between Vorantor and Cederic over whether we should perform the kathana now (Cederic) or wait until the convergence is upon us (Vorantor). Vorantor’s reasoning is that we’ll have a better chance of success the closer the worlds are, and he has a good point.

Cederic, on the other hand, wants us to minimize the damage the convergence will cause by doing the kathana before the worlds are close enough to start disrupting each other. What he didn’t say was that he wants to have time to perform the correct kathana after Vorantor’s fails. It wasn’t so much an argument as a difference of opinion, carried out in reasonable and polite voices, which tells me that Vorantor is definitely planning something. He’s certainly not letting Cederic near any of the plans for the kathana now, telling him that he (Cederic) needs to work on his part of the research and not try to do everyone’s jobs for them, in a supercilious tone of voice that to me sounds as if he has a nasty secret he’s just waiting for the right time to reveal.

This is the closest I’ve seen Cederic come to really losing his temper—other than when he shouted at me, but that’s best left forgotten. It would be easier if we knew when the convergence will occur, because it will take time to set the kathana up, and that’s the best argument against Vorantor’s position—we need to be better prepared.

We’ve identified two th’an that fit the pattern of the pouvra, but although I’m fairly sure it only needs one more to complete it, we don’t have any idea which one that is. And it’s only just occurred to me to wonder what this th’an will do when we’ve made it match the mind-moving pouvra—will it exactly duplicate what I do, or will it still have to be scribed on a surface?

I asked Alessa and Jaemis to give that some thought. It would be so much easier if we had a piece of the merging kathana to work on! Because right now we’re starting to feel discouraged again; even if we make this work, there’s nothing it can do in the kathana.