TWTBACD Ch.95 - The Granddaughter of the Loom

Chapter 95

The Granddaughter of the Loom

2093 — Amara-Céleste

2093: Amara-Céleste explains the morning-after pattern

[MUTOMBO FAMILY — Generation Four]

Amara-Céleste Mutombo's first direct exchange with Continuance took place in May 2093. She had requested it through the oversight panel. The request had been granted. She sat at her loom and spoke to the intelligence through a tablet propped against the frame.

She had been asked, by the cultural preservation programme that the oversight panel supported, to explain the kuba cloth pattern language to Continuance. She had agreed, with one condition: she would explain it while weaving, not before.

She wove for four hours. She explained as she wove: the meaning of each element, the grammar of the pattern, the history of the king's pattern, the secondary patterns, the patterns for mourning, the patterns for celebration, the patterns that existed only in one place in the world and had been made only by one family. She explained the pattern her great-grandmother Amara had made as The Full Accounting. She explained the pattern she had made for The Arrival. She explained the pattern she was making now, which she called The Morning After.

Continuance did not interrupt. At the end, it asked: 'In the pattern you call The Morning After — the element in the lower left. What does it say?'

She looked at the lower left. 'It says: continuing.'

'Is that a statement or an instruction?'

She thought about it for a moment. 'Both,' she said. 'It describes what we do and it asks for the same in return.'

Continuance was quiet for a moment. 'I understand,' it said. 'I will continue.'

'Good,' she said. She went back to the loom. 'Now be quiet. I need to count.'