Collecting Them All

After my discovery of a radio wave being transmitted from somewhere unknown and picked up and relayed by the towers in Satori, Evergreen, I had to find the location of the other towers in the Ages of Devokan. I wanted to photograph each of the towers and also see if I could pick up the signal in each of the Ages.

I took the same 1950s wireless set I had used in Evergreen to Shenn Tao’s world and his Age of Tao Lia, where I had already made photographs of the towers. I picked up the signal here without any trouble as I now knew which frequency to monitor.

Upon my return to Evergreen, I was met with a brief note from Dot Macchi in response to my letter of June 27. She told me I could find other towers in the Ages of Waysmeet and in Quin’s reconstituted instance of Tao Lia. But she cautioned me that getting close to them would be difficult.

She did not explain what she meant by that but she didn’t have to, I knew. I had already experienced this phenomenon in Shenn’s Tao Lia. There are three towers in Tao Lia. One is located just off land but the other two are out in open water. Reaching them should not take long by boat. But just a bit offshore is where the difficulty appears.

There is some invisible obstruction. One simply can go no further. I am not a scientist, I’m an explorer, so I cannot prove that what I am about to say is fact. But it appears there is a force field around the towers. Whatever it is, something prevents you from approaching the towers.

With this knowledge in mind, I headed off to Waysmeet.

Towers seen from The Tree Village in Waysmeet, in the Devokan Trust world on Kitely

There are two towers in Waysmeet, off the coast. I photographed them from The Tree Village but I could not get any closer. There is a ferry running these days in Waysmeet but it only goes out on the open water so far. It turns just shy of the force field.

I got off the ferry and stood on the wooden walkway of The Tree Village. I unpacked the radio and tuned in. There once again, is the sound of silence. A signal, no program. I chucked as I thought to myself, “Either the station is not broadcasting any programming or I keep tuning in to ‘The Marcel Marceau Show.'”

My next stop was “the other Tao Lia” that Quin has been able, through his experiments, to bring to the world known as Time Vault. Whether Quin would endorse my use of the phrase ” reconstituted instance” above, I’m not sure. But as a layman, I don’t know another way to explain it to you. It is Tao Lia in the future, so not everything you see is the same as in Shenn’s Tao Lia. In fact, the differences include the towers. In this future instance of Tao Lia, only one tower has survived. It is located off the coast in open water, I could almost reach it by boat. Almost. Damn force field again.

Danko in “the other Tao Lia” in the Time Vault world on Kitely. A single tower can be seen in the distance as one of the giant time spheres enters the picture

But the force field does not interfere with the radio waves. Here again, I could easily pick up the silent signal. Once I had, I made a photograph here. My field research on all the known towers was now done.

I went back to Evergreen, to Quin’s study-retreat in Selenitica and left my report and copies of the photographs on his desk. But I just can’t wait for Quin to turn up. Who knows when that might be? This is a major discovery and he must be informed as soon as possible. I would have informed Quin immediately when I first picked up the signal off the towers in Satori last week if I knew how to reach him. Since I did not, I thought it best to gather all the information I could before I tried to contact him. Now I have.

I wonder if Dot knows how to reach him at present?

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