Terminator Folk
Short, stubborn diggers of the terminator, the line between the scorching day and the freezing night of Mercury. Their ancestors walked with that line around the whole world; now they live dug in behind walls of salt, which drinks the heat of the day and gives it back all night. Every family keeps a mirror on a pole, and humans are "softbacks" to them: no shell, no claws, and hopeless at digging.
«A softback! Stand still, let me look... No shell, no claws, and the skin of a boiled skink. Don't take offense, guest: here that means "welcome". I am ….»
The settlement and its dwellers
Crafts
Looks
Where they live
Burrows of the Line. A settlement of the Terminator Folk: burrows dug into the plain, each roofed with a low dome of polished salt that shines like their own shells, and beside each one the family mirror on a pole. In the middle lies the Line Court, its floor split by a golden line into night and day, where the whole settlement turns its mirrors to the Sun at the long dawn.
Tasks
Our Storeroom Under the Line· ElderGo down into the Terminator Deeps, the old storeroom of the burrows, and come back up.
«Before the softbacks dug their bunker into it, the Vault was ours: salt cellars, heat locked in the rock, the count of dawns cut into the walls. Then the softbacks came, then the Linewalker went down to walk the bottom hall, and nobody goes down any more. Go and look for us, softback. Count the scratches on the cellar walls and come back up. Up — that's the important part.»
Let the Walker Rest· ElderDefeat the Terminator Warden in the bottom hall of the Terminator Deeps.
«He said: dig in, and I'll walk for all of you. He has walked so long that the softbacks' armor has grown into him. The elders of every burrow argued about it for a hundred dawns, and the argument is over: let him rest. His altar wants two hearts of cinder. When he stands up, softback, put him down gently. He's earned gently.»
The Ring of the Line· ElderWake the great ring of stone on the plain of Mercury: the gate between the worlds.
«The ring on the plain wakes for one who stopped the Linewalker and stood out in the Blaze's spit. The first is done. When the Blaze spits next, stand under it — not under salt — and live. Then give the ring his core, stardust from your road, and our iridium and quicksilver for its frames. A road with no Line on it... I want to see that before my dome goes dull.»
Twenty Mirrors Where One Would Do· Mirror PolisherFind the softbacks' heliostat field and bring the mirror polisher two jars of their mirror coating.
«You've heard me laugh about the softbacks' mirror field. I'll stop laughing for one thing: their silver. They coated their glass with something that throws back more of the Blaze than our best paste. Half their mirrors lie on their faces now. Go there, take two jars of that coating from their store, and I'll show you why one mirror is better than twenty.»
A Shine for the First Layer· Mirror PolisherCarry four portions of grinding paste from the mirror polisher to the salt mason, for a hatchling's first dome.
«Ulda's hatchling grows its first layer this dawn — its dome, I mean. The mason laid the burrow, and laid it well, but masons never think of polish: to a mason a dull dome is a finished dome. Carry this paste over. Tell the mason the shine is for the little one, so it's no favor to anyone and nobody has to say thank you.»
The Shield That Held· Salt MasonFind the heat shield wreck on the plains and bring the salt mason two of its heat tiles.
«Out on the plain a softback shield stands on its edge in its own crater. It held; the hull behind it didn't. We masons go out to admire it now and then: thin as a claw, and it took a fall that melted rock. Bring me two of its tiles, softback. I want to know how something that thin holds the Blaze — and then I want to build something with it.»
When the Hollows Grow· Salt MasonLive through the growth of the hollows on Mercury and bring the salt mason twelve pieces of hollow salt.
«Every so often the hollows grow: a patch of ground smokes, a sign burns on it, and then it drops a step or two into the rock. At the bottom lies fresh salt that's never seen the Blaze — the best there is for a dome. We dig it out afterwards; you could get there first. When the ground smokes, step off it — step off, softback — then climb down and cut.»
The Ugly Tunnel· Iridium DiggerFind the softbacks' iridium dig and bring the iridium digger four pieces of raw iridium from its face.
«The softbacks drove an adit under a spoil heap — two wide, on props, props! — and left the face half worked. The heavy silver is still there, calling. No Terminator will go into a tunnel that ugly; it's a matter of manners. But it's your people's tunnel, so it's your manners. Go in, finish their face, and bring me four pieces of the raw silver.»
Silver in the Pillars· Iridium DiggerLive through the magnetic tornadoes on Mercury and bring the iridium digger four pinches of iridium dust.
«When the pillars of fire walk the plain, they suck the heavy silver out of the ground, grind it to dust and throw it about like a hatchling throws gravel. We diggers hide in the burrows: those pillars bite. But you wear a suit that drinks lightning, the polishers say. Walk with the pillars, pick up the silver dust they spit, and bring me four pinches.»
Walkers at the Wall· Heat Keeper· repeatableBreak two cinder walkers that come to the burrows looking for warmth.
«Walkers of cinder smell our heaters through the salt and come scratching at the walls by day. We don't fight them, we let the Blaze tire them out — but a tired walker still scratches. You've got a weapon and a hard head. Break two, and I'll pay in heat: briquettes that burn a whole night.»
Ice for the White Spark· Heat KeeperCarry a block of blue polar ice from the heat keeper to the condenser keeper of the Cloud Dwellers on Venus.
«You say on the white spark people squeeze water out of the sky a cup a day? A cup! We keep ice in the cold craters at the poles, heaps of it; to us it's just stone. Here — a block I brought back wrapped in salt. Carry it to the one who keeps their water. Don't unwrap it until you're there, and don't let it see the Blaze on the way.»
The Hours of the Last Walk· Dawn CallerFind the Terminator Obelisk and bring the dawn caller three pieces of golden sulfide to re-gild its hours.
«Along the obelisk's shadow lie golden marks: the hours of the last Walk, one for each stop. The Blaze has been licking the gold off them for a long time, and soon nobody will be able to read them. A dawn caller has to keep the count. Go to the obelisk, look at the marks, and bring me golden sulfide to re-gild them. Then I'll tell you what the last mark means.»
Back to the Blaze· Dawn CallerLive through a solar flare on Mercury under the open sky.
«I hear the Blaze before anyone: before it spits, it hums under the edge like a heater about to crack. When it does, the burrows go under salt. But the ring on the plain wants one who stood out in the spit and lived, and the old Walkers prayed exactly like that: standing, back to the Blaze, saying "not yet, not yet". Do it once, softback. Then come and tell me what it sounded like.»
Words over the Blade· Dawn CallerForge the Linewalker's core into a twilight blade and show it to the dawn caller.
«If you forge his core into a blade — your smiths say it makes a fine one — I won't be angry: he walked, and a blade walks too, in a hand. But nothing made of him should go about without the old words said over it. Bring it to me when it's done — just show it, I won't touch the edge — and I'll say them. Then it's not his core any more. It's a walker.»
Heat on a Leash· Heat KeeperBring the heat keeper six copper tubes and four hull plates, to lead the heat of the day wall to the far end of the burrow.
«Salt is a fine thing, softback, but it's lazy: it gives the heat back right where it drank it. The wall is warm, the room behind it is warm, and the far end of the burrow, where the hatchlings sleep, is cold by the middle of the long night. Your red metal is the other way round: keeps nothing, passes everything on, like a gossip. Bring me six tubes of it, and four of your iron plates to sit against the wall that faces the Blaze. I'll put the heat on a leash and walk it down to the little ones.»
What to talk about
Tell me about this world.
The world? The world is the Line, softback. On one side the Blaze, where lead runs like water; on the other the cold, where your breath would fall as snow, if you had breath. Between them runs the Line, the edge of the day, and it walks about as fast as you do. Everything that lives here lives near it.
What were they like?
Big and hot. That's all the track says, and a track doesn't lie. Where they stepped, the frost of the cold side melted and never came back — the only wet hollows on the whole Line are their footprints. Lead runs like water in the Blaze, and they walked through it without hurrying. We dig into the salt to sit out a day. They walked through days.
Is the Linewalker one of them?
No. Too small: he lands on every third print of their track, I've watched him do it. The dawn callers say he's their echo. When the First Walkers left, the Line stood empty, and the day doesn't like an empty Line. So something kept on walking in their stride. Something that remembers the stride — and not much else.
The tablet says: a warden was set by the road.
Set. Not born, not come — set. Like a stake at a burrow mouth so the hatchlings don't tumble in. Ha. Ten thousand dawns we sang to him, and he was somebody's stake. A good one, mind you: he kept the Line while we dug in. Whoever set him knew we'd get tired one day. Can't say that for the Blaze.
Why did you stop?
Because the Linewalker told us to. He led the Walk, the first one and the last. When we grew too many and too tired, he said: dig in, and I'll walk for all of you. We dug. He walks. Ask about what lies under the Line if you want the rest; it's not a cheerful story.
The Sun rose, stopped and went back down. Does that happen?
The Hesitation! It does. Sometimes the Blaze peeks over the edge, thinks better of it, sinks back, and only then comes up for real. The dawn callers say the Sun is shy of us; the masons say it forgot something. A hatchling born between the two dawns is lucky: it chooses its own craft.
How do you live through the heat and the cold?
We don't argue with either. Under salt and mirrors in the Blaze, by the salt that drank the day in the cold. And we eat the Line itself. Here, a bowl of twilight broth: gold on one side, dark on the other, salt in the middle. Eat it before you step into either.
Is there any water on Mercury?
Only as stone. At the poles there are craters whose bottoms have never seen the Blaze, not once since the world began, and there the cold keeps ice. Heat keepers make the trip now and then and bring blocks of it back wrapped in salt. Bring us ice of your own and you'll see a Terminator dance.
What is worth seeing around here?
Our holy places and our storerooms; for us that's the same thing. And the holes the softbacks left, but ask about those separately. That's another kind of story.
Who built the shrine with the golden ring?
The Walkers did, where the Blaze first burned one of them. The stelae look inward, away from the Sun: you never look at the Blaze, you look at what it lights. Stand in the ring with your back to it and you'll understand our prayers. They're mostly "not yet, not yet".
And the salt pillars in the hollows?
Salt orchards. The hollows breathe salt out of the rock, and where a seam of warm crust runs underneath, the salt climbs toward the cold like a plant. We cut a pillar once in a hundred dawns, and only from the top: cut the root and your grandchildren go without salt.
Who raised the obelisk whose shadow never moves?
We did, where the Walk ended. The shadow stays put as long as the Linewalker keeps walking: that's the bargain. The golden marks along it are the hours of the last Walk. If the shadow ever moves, the dawn callers say, it's time to walk again.
What is the crater of fused crust?
A piece of the sky fell there, hot enough to melt the rock. The drop of gold at the bottom is all that's left of it. Heat keepers go there for embers: the crust there has never quite cooled. Watch out for the walkers of cinder. They like it there too.
What is the salt dome in the hollows?
A bubble the hollows blew. Someone carved benches in it: maybe us, maybe the softbacks, maybe both. We go there to listen to the salt growing. It's very quiet, like a claw on glass far away. If you hear it, you've stood there long enough.
Names
Durrum · Kesh · Orra · Bask · Tukka · Hedda · Grumm · Saal · Pakk · Redda · Vorr · Adda