Fraa Jesry

Fraa Jesry is an avout (math scholar‑monk) of the Concent of Saunt Edhar (walled monastic community), a close peer of Fraa Erasmas, and a practical hand at observation‑driven work associated with lines of inquiry tied to Fraa Orolo. Earlier accounts include interior speely (recorded video) footage from the capsule engaged with the visitors that shows Jesry aboard, offering concise, technical guidance and real‑time observations to the Warden of Heaven’s team. By the time of the Convox (large convocation of avout) at the Concent of Saunt Tredegarh, Jesry is again working among the avout and interacting with Erasmas.

Appearance and Traits

• Tall with a distinctive, self‑contained gait recognizable to peers.
• Direct, succinct, and pragmatic; favors measurable facts and clear deductions.
• Wry, needling humor under tension; steady confidence in others’ ability to follow the reasoning.
• Rugged, austere presence in simple Edharian garb; often sketches quick diagrams in sand or chalk to make a point; deep, confident baritone. Comfortable reasoning in convivial settings (wine or beer at hand) and quick with a compact one‑liner.

Roles and Actions

Space mission involvement (interior speely)

• Seen inside a space capsule during a rendezvous with the visitors’ icosahedral craft, participating in crew conversation and procedures.
• Advises keeping observations concrete (e.g., visible symmetries, periodicities such as breathing rates) to build common reference points; questions assumptions about what the visitors will recognize.
• Makes operational calls (e.g., activity on the base plate, an incoming bogey, communication and telemetry issues), using precise technical language.

Work at Tredegarh during the Convox

• Jesry visits Erasmas while the latter is confined for health precautions and argues that cross‑infection is unlikely. His reasoning: a recorded spot of the visitors’ laser showed a wavelength (captured on a photomnemonic tablet—exact‑light recorder) that does not match any natural spectral line; this is consistent with devices made from newmatter (engineered nuclei). From this he infers that the visitors’ atoms and ours do not support the same complex biochemistry, making infection improbable; he predicts Erasmas will be released soon. (All of this is presented as Jesry’s explanation to Erasmas.)
• In the same conversation, Jesry notes that fragments recovered from the landing (e.g., hardware pieces, cloth, a sample box) and the deceased visitor’s body—preserved through Orolo’s actions—are being studied; he attributes the same “newmatter” signature to all of it. He uses this to extend the no‑infection inference in both directions.
• Arsibalt reports that when Jesry returned from space a large gathering was convened to brief the Convox, indicating that Jesry’s role is widely recognized among avout present at Tredegarh.
• In a Plurality of Worlds messal, Fraa Paphlagon cites Jesry as having relayed Erasmas’s observation about the probe’s parachute; this is used to argue that the visitors have not mastered newmatter, consistent with Jesry’s earlier infection‑risk reasoning.
• Edharian chapter‑house cosmography and observation prep: Jesry is seen checking coordinates and timing on slate for pointing ground telescopes (including a well‑known instrument pair) toward the visitors’ craft. He infers that “something is going to happen” and, ahead of time, predicts the craft will rotate to bring its shielded face toward an approaching high‑orbit “bird,” as later described by a Sæcular aide. He steps outside with companions to watch the sky; when a tiny flash appears where the craft is expected, Jesry labels it a “directed energy weapon.” He jokes darkly about the risk of retaliation and, along with Erasmas, eyes the Precipice tunnels as prudent shelter if needed.
• As Tredegarh’s administration temporarily suspends Lucubs to prioritize modeling, Jesry’s planned Lucub is canceled along with others.
• During the shift to hard modeling work in new Laboratoria, Jesry is assigned to investigate the visitors’ X‑ray laser batteries. Propulsion issues are described as challenging “even for a Jesry,” underscoring his reputation for tackling difficult technical problems.

Evacuation and Cell 317

• When a grounded mesh isolates a messallan and a candid exchange exposes infiltrators, a controlled evacuation of Tredegarh begins. Jesry is assigned to Cell 317.
• He boards a commandeered coach and then a military aerocraft with Fraa Erasmas, Arsibalt, Fraa Jad, a small cadre of Valers, and the Ita Sammann; Fraa Lio effectively leads the cell.
• Jesry greets Erasmas with gallows humor about being “vaporized” together and promptly dubs Arsibalt the cell’s “morale officer,” reflecting a steadying wit under pressure. The cell also takes in a Laterran guest, Jules Verne Durand, before departure.

Preparation and training at Elkhazg

• While transiting with Cell 317, Jesry is named the cell’s training lead.
• Upon arrival at a fortified caravanserai at Elkhazg, he immerses in space‑suit manuals and, alongside Suur Vay, organizes instruction for the cell.
• He demonstrates black, modular suits designed centuries earlier for a prior program and preserved through the Third Sack; he explains their integration with open‑frame upper‑stage rigs (nicknamed “monyafeeks”) that latch directly to the suit in lieu of a pressurized capsule.
• Training covers life‑support logistics (cryogenic oxygen and hydrogen canisters, fuel‑cell power, CO₂ scrubbers and recycling via a “tender” unit), donning rigs, a retractable blackout screen for light discipline, and the suit’s purely mechanical manipulator “skelehands.”
• He emphasizes discipline in oxygen use and sanitation and keeps morale steady with dry humor.
• He notes sixteen suits are available; eleven are allocated to the cell.
• He helps coordinate simulator practice for rotation and translation control in orbit, preparing the team to consolidate payloads into a thrust platform for a rendezvous with the Daban Urnud, as briefed by Fraa Lio.

Ascent and operations in low orbit

• Jesry rides an individually piloted upper stage to orbit and begins coordinating consolidation under a reflective balloon while chaff spreads to confuse watchers. On comms he monitors traffic, computes propellant needs, and turns early suggestions into crisp maneuver commands as the cell brings in red (people/critical systems) and blue (supplies) payloads.
• Working alongside Sammann, Fraa Gratho, Suur Esma, Jules Verne Durand, Fraa Arsibalt, and Fraa Jad, he helps organize the first cluster of captured payloads in the shelter of the balloon.
• When a critical red payload (the tender’s compact reactor) drifts past at high relative speed, Jesry trusts Erasmas to pursue it and later provides the precise rendezvous burn that brings Erasmas and the unit back to the cluster. His on‑the‑fly guidance reflects fast orbital geometries done in his head and checked on the suit’s syndev.
• After a decoy departs and self‑destructs to distract observers, the team moves beneath a large, flat, radar‑reflective “Cold Black Mirror” that hides their emissions. Jesry later applies power to an electrodynamic tether, bowing the line against the planet’s magnetic field and putting the stack under continuous, silent thrust toward the Daban Urnud.
• Under Fraa Lio’s discipline the team minimizes wireless chatter; Jesry operates in a hard‑wired loop with peers and accepts only narrow‑beam updates via the Reticulum. He continues to act as operations lead while the group manages oxygen, fuel, and thermal constraints during the long spiral toward rendezvous.

Reticulum anomalies and surveillance triggers

• In private, Erasmas shares a concern labeled “Everything Killers”; Jesry listens, then—in light of odd, conflicting status reports from ground support cells—helps frame the issue as a testable problem.
• He proposes and runs an experiment with Erasmas to probe whether certain topics cause their suit systems to create flagged recordings in the Reticulum’s outbound queue. By disconnecting and reconnecting and varying topics, they identify trigger words; discussion of Everything Killers reliably creates priority files. Sammann observes the queue behavior and confirms the pattern; Fraa Jad then disables their transmitter to prevent further leakage.

“Everything Killers” hypothesis about the Big Pill

• In a tense group debate about loyalties and tactics, Jesry advances a concrete hypothesis: if a covert plan exists, it likely does not depend on equipment that might be lost or destroyed, but on the people. He argues that the “Everything Killers” could be inside them—implanted via the swallowable core‑temperature transponders (“the Big Pill”) taken before launch. He asks if anyone has passed it; no one has. Suur Vay notes exceptions for Jad and Jules and explains the medical symptoms that exposed the issue.
• Jesry’s framing treats it as a practical risk to be addressed, not a settled fact, and helps channel the conversation toward operational safeguards.

Terminal approach and first purchase on the Daban Urnud

• As the long spiral ends, Jesry works with Jad and Erasmas using a sextant and sky‑fixes to time a final cut of the electrodynamic tether, shedding the counterweight for a precise momentum change.
• After the Cold Black Mirror is released, the cell closes to visual range with a dark facet of the icosahedral rubble shield. At Lio’s signal, grapnels are fired; after a brief, chaotic snarl of tethers, the team secures a foothold on the mesh binding the rubble. Jesry is among those establishing the first purchase on the Daban Urnud’s exterior.

Exterior traverse and entry via the observatory

• While moving across the rubble‑armored facets in darkness with magnetic soles, Jesry tracks the terminator and calls timing to shift the group between facets without exposure.
• From the new vantage, he observes activity around the World Burner and, with dry humor, dismisses the notion of routine work—underscoring that urgency is warranted.
• As the Ringing Vale contingent breaks away to board the World Burner, Jesry stays with the main party and helps choose a safer ingress: an observatory vertex whose telescope dome can function as a large airlock.
• He explains, in practical terms, why the dome must be floodable and evacuable for maintenance and observation, shaping the group’s approach.
• Inside the dome, with oxygen nearly exhausted, he swaps canisters with Erasmas and then helps Fraa Lio doff his suit as breathable air returns.
• After pressurization, accounts diverge: in one line reported by Fraa Jad, Jesry leaves with Fraa Lio, Fraa Arsibalt, and Sammann to move openly through the ship intending to surrender peacefully upon discovery; in another, Jad states that the rest of the party are dead. The situation aboard remains chaotic, and Jesry’s immediate fate is not directly witnessed by Erasmas.

Thought and Debate

• In small‑group settings Jesry tends toward simple, testable explanations and prefers to cut through elaborate proposals when a direct argument will do.
• In a brief exchange about configuration‑space models, he sums up their practical payoff in a single word—“time”—and quips that such abstractions gain practical relevance “when strangers come to town from four different cosmi at once,” blending humor with focus on what matters operationally.
• During a chronology discussion at Elkhazg, he presses for a concrete conversion between Urnudan and Arbran years, tying captured timestamp formats to named events (including his Plenary) to bound when the visitors began their long voyage.
• When a discussion turns to decision‑making in emergencies and pattern grasping (e.g., the Teglon), Jesry warns against abandoning disciplined analysis; he argues for cultivating judgment without discarding the Rake, helping keep the group focused on testable inferences and operational consequences.

Relationships and Affiliations

• Erasmas: Long‑standing peer and collaborator. Jesry seeks him out at Tredegarh to share results and inferences.
• Ala: Jesry states that after their Voco (formal summoning rite) he and Ala began a liaison; he expects not to hear from her until she decides how to proceed.
• Orolo: Jesry’s practical efforts align with inquiries associated with Orolo; he refers to outcomes made possible by Orolo’s intervention at the landing site.

Current Status

• After entry via the observatory dome on the Daban Urnud, subsequent events clarify that Jesry survived and is aboard the ship under medical care. When a delegation from Arbre arrived bringing physicians, oxygen, and provisions, Ala named five hampers prepared for survivors: Fraa Erasmas, Fraa Lio, Jesry, Fraa Arsibalt, and Sammann. Jesry is thus recognized among those alive on the Daban Urnud; his activities beyond recovery have not yet been described.

Notes

• Some at Tredegarh briefly referred to Orolo as “Saunt Orolo” following the viewing of certain footage; Jesry remarks that usage has since become more cautious among others. This reflects shifting opinion at the Convox, not an official declaration.