Departure

I wasn’t sure how I should feel about the Korbanok data.

We’d kept it’s existence very secret so far. It meant we were ultimately lying about some of our motives, and considering the blood spilt… I couldn’t shake a guilty feeling in the pit of my stomach.

I wasn’t about to blab to Umtane or Director Hom-Heg either though. There would be information about me on the drive.

We had more or less shelved the prospect of finding it as the bioweapon debacle unfolded. That fact made me feel more than a little better. I wanted to find that data more than anyone, but it hadn’t been worth prioritizing until now.

I said, walking through the hall.

Tasser said.

And he was right. Three different supply rooms for three different home worlds and the organisms they had spread to each of their colonies.

The Casti room was bigger than the other two combined, and it had a messily carved hole near the back of it where Umtane had used his little hand-pumped hydraulic cutter.

The Vorak one was the runner-up. Dr. Mo’s remarks in passing had led me to believe the room had gotten a lot more usage since the Vorak had occupied the star system. In the years since, the Organic Authority on Yawhere had just done more Vorak medicine. Allergen studies, large scale vaccination programs, it was an impressive list.

But in the early morning hours, long before Dr. Mo or any of his staff would arrive, we were only interested in the room that stored the Farnata biological elements.

Bonus, the door had even caught one of Vather’s beams. The frame was dented, and the lock smashed free of the wall.

Tasser asked.

I said.

Nai sighed.

I asked, holding up my wallet.

I slid the warped door open as far as I could, far enough for Nai and Tasser to slip inside.

Nai asked.

I held up a hand to stop her.

I said,

Behind me were huge custom cabinets dominated one wall with dozens of locked drawers. Each one could be connected to a scale to measure the contents. The logs for those measurements had been mostly digital, but some departments had still kept paper redundancies.

Ecology & Biospheres probably had the largest variety of biomaterials kept in storage, but their records had been immaculate. All of our investigation had focused on the Vorak biomaterials—because that was the biosphere that Lestrazine bioweapons originated from.

By comparison, we barely paid any attention to the Farnata stocks. These just weren’t touched that much. They weren’t needed often. But there was still a Farnata diaspora on the planet. So these stockpiles were kept.

I was looking for a certain ‘catalytic food molecule’. I couldn’t pronounce which one, but each drawer had a numerical ID in addition to the name of its contents.

Tasser agreed.

Nai said.

I told her.

Nai said,

Nai recalled.

I said.

Nai realized.

I agreed.

I finally found the drawer we were looking for and levered it open.

I said, reaching into the powder filling the drawer. I fished out a sealed plastic bag carrying a heavy rectangular computer drive.

“Diraral,” Tasser swore, “they swapped it.”

I nodded.

Nai connected.

I said.

I handed her the drive and she promptly stowed it under her poncho.

Nai asked, bewildered.

No one was sure what to say to that. Especially me.

I said.

Nai nodded and the three of us slunk our way out of the ruined Ecology & Biospheres department without having uttered a single word out loud.

·····

I thumbed the engraved medallion on my wrist. The first thing I’d done after receiving it had been to cascade it in detail and psionically record its shape.

When they’d said the complex series of grooves and dimples was a ‘forty digit’ code, I’d thought that number to be a little low.

The ‘individual nutritional index’ was supposed to encompass all the dietary restrictions an organism could be subject to. 40 digits could encode a lot of information, but I’d been skeptical how circumspect it would wind up being until Tasser had clarified.

40 ‘digit’ had been something of a mistranslation—those were rarer and rarer nowadays thankfully—the bracelet encoded 40 different numbers, some as short as 3 digits long, others as long as 14.

Supposedly, it wasn’t actually that hard to learn how to read, but I was less concerned with that than about actually using the index for its intended purpose.

The Prowlers had left one final parting gift by completely trashing the Green Complexes long range broadcasting equipment, so Nai and Nemuleki were both antsy to get on the road again. The sooner we could reach somewhere to broadcast to Ase Serral back in Demon’s Pit, the better.

It meant I was making do with rations this morning, even though I could have been sipping broth, or chewing on any manner of alien vegetables, or enjoying some of that flatbread—well, actually not that stuff. According to Dr. Mo’s experiments, that had been what triggered my anaphylaxis.

I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t be tempted to eat some more given the opportunity. The taste of crumbling chalky nutrient blocks was a lot harder to tolerate after tasting real food again after so long.

“You sure you don’t want my help?” I asked Nemuleki. “Someone said you were shot.”

She, along with half a dozen of the Casti we’d left outside, was hoisting crates of our stuff into our vehicles.

“I wasn’t shot,” she frowned. “Who told you that?”

“…Tasser,” I said, just a bit too slowly. “Corphica. Grami. Adden?”

Nemuleki snorted.

“Oh come on,” I said. “I’m just sitting here watching you all make trips back and forth. There has to be something I can do to help.”

“Did you already load your stuff?” she asked.

“Mine was the first stuff in,” I said. “I only came here with two spare outfits and my air bubble machine. The only thing extra I’m taking away from here is a case of medical stuff. I travel light.”

“Then you’re fine,” Nemuleki insisted. “We told Umtane and Director Hom-Heg you’d be here, they wanted to meet one last time before we drag you away. There’s, like, ten of us loading the rigs. One extra pair of hands won’t make that much difference.”

“What’s even in those crates anyway?” I asked. “Grami and Wurshken were digging around in them for the last week and I have no idea what was in them.”

“Things like the radios, our own medical supplies, some batons, it’s just a bunch of miscellaneous equipment we might have wanted. It’s not that important, just…sit and don’t make anyone look for you if they need you.”

“…Alright,” I said.

Nemuleki didn’t buy it for a second.

“Is this about Letrin?” she asked.

“If I said ‘no’, would you believe me?”

Her stare didn’t waver even for a moment. I hadn’t answered her question.

“…I don’t like the idea of not helping—pulling my own weight, I mean,” I said.

“You’re not respons—” a Casti voice started.

“I know, I know…” I said. I looked up to see it wasn’t Nemuleki to have spoken, but Corphica. My impression had been that she was close with Letrin.

“He knew the risks of what we do,” Corphica said. “We all did.”

“I know,” I said. “I know it doesn’t make sense to feel responsible. But I do.”

“He knew the risks of what he was getting into,” Nemuleki repeated slowly. “But you might not have, Caleb.”

That was…not incorrect.

“I…know the risks. I knew them. But I think I forgot them too. I keep forgetting them.”

I could steel myself for the important moments, like frantically running away from killer otters. I could quash all the normal reactions down and pare away everything that wasn’t needed.

“There’s a reason we receive training to be soldiers,” Nemuleki said. “I’d bet that was true on your homeworld too. You aren’t cut out for the kind of ‘kill or be killed’ that keeps chasing you.”

She looked like she might have regretted saying so, like it might have come across like an insult.

“I don’t think I ever want to be cut out for it,” I confessed. “Not really. But…”

Corphica possessed a bit less tact than Nemuleki. They both followed my implication but only Corphica said, “but you might not have a choice,” aloud.

“You look like you might try to squeeze oil from a stone,” Umtane said, interrupting the gloomy mood thank God.

“The equivalent phrase on Earth would say ‘blood’ instead of oil,” I mused.

“How would you get blood from a stone?” Umtane asked.

“How could you get oil?” I retorted.

“Well depending on the stone, by squeezing it very hard.”

I rolled my eyes.

Umtane and another Vorak I hadn’t met before were accompanied by Director Hom-Heg and several Organic Authority personnel helping load the vehicle Umtane was taking.

“Caleb Hane, this is Manra, my coworker,” Umtane introduced. “So if you’re in the mood to feel responsible for anything, she would be walking out of here alone today if not for you.”

“I’m sorry we aren’t meeting under better circumstances,” I told her.

“Thank you for helping Senior Umtane,” she said. “I heard that you were abducted by the Red Sails? I don’t think many people would have put that aside like you did.”

I held out my hand for her to shake, which prompted some confusion, but it wasn’t the hardest custom to pick up.

Umtane shook my hand too. “I’m in your debt,” he reminded me. “And this is hardly payment, but I do have something for you and your Coalition friends.”

Nai emerged with a shackled Vorak in tow. It was Itun, bound in manacles with opaque patches affixed over his eyes and large cylindrical pucks covering both ears.

“I’ve cleared it with the Niza and the Warlock,” Umtane said. “It’s a military technicality, but you were the one to incapacitate him. It makes him your prisoner, not mine.”

“…That seems like it might be more trouble than its worth,” I ventured.

“Relax Caleb,” Nai said. “I made these shackles. If he even tries to cascade them, he’s dead. He can’t see or hear either.”

Nai had said it was hard to prevent an Adept from using their powers for very long. This was the obvious solution. Itun was still perfectly capable of materializing whatever he wanted. But Nai had put him in a position where the price of doing so was more or less instant death.

“If he’s my prisoner, what do I do with him?”

“Adept prisoners are valuable negotiating pieces,” Umtane said. “I’m sure you’ll find some way to benefit.”

It was a not a subtle look he gave Nai when he said so.

Nai said.

Credit wasn’t the most valuable thing right now. But it would accumulate.

Umtane, sharp as ever, did not miss the silent exchange I had with Nai.

“What a trick…” he breathed. “I’m dying to know how it works.”

“Tell you what,” I said, sure it would be a long time from now, “if we ever meet in person again, I’ll consider letting you in on the secret.”

“Well I’m heading back to Deep Coils space as soon as I can, so I doubt I’ll have the opportunity to transmit to you if you’re going to one of the Paris Coalition stations.”

“Oh? The Deep Coils don’t talk with the Coalition moon colonies?” I asked mockingly.

“No civilian channels,” Umtane said, cracking a smile. “But…considering you and what else has happened since you showed up…you never know what change might come with the next seasons.”

“Tashi Umtane might not be able to stay in contact,” Director Hom-Heg said, “but I’d like to, even if infrequently.”

“You want to make sure your facility has a continuing line of communication to the strange new First Contact?” I guessed.

“Professionally? Of course,” he said. “But, personally, I regret much of my role in how this came to be, and I can’t help but feel indebted as well. I know you declined my offer, but it stands regardless. Here, instructions on how to contact me or the facility,” Hom-Heg said, handing me a sealed envelope.

“I appreciate it,” I said. “But I think we’re about to roll away from here.”

Nemuleki and Nai very ungraciously loaded Itun into one of the vehicles, and Tasser was beckoning me over to our ride.

“Safe sailing, Caleb Hane,” the Vorak said.

“Thank you, Umtane,” I said. “You helped me too, you know. I got some important reminders from you.”

Not wanting to keep me, he gave a curt nod, and I climbed into the backseat.

I sent Tasser.

Tasser shrugged.

So I got to work.

·····

I said.

Our little convoy had been on the road for an hour or two. Arid canyonlands had thinned into gently grassy hills.

I was grateful that the scenery had gotten monotonous. It made it easier to focus on analyzing Tasser’s psionics.

And oh, how fun it was…I was a kid in the sandbox with a stupid grin on my face.

Tasser pushed the construct up and out from his mind, enough for me to get some hooks into it and drag it into my mind. Once it was there, I could properly manipulate and modify it.

The psionic radio I’d shared with Nai had two basic elements: the transmitter and the receiver. His receiver was working fine, which made sense. Nai and I had spent a while making sure that the receivers worked for both of us. So since Tasser was only receiving signals from both of us again, it wasn’t the problem.

The transmitter on the other hand…I hadn’t tuned it for anyone but Nai, and best I could tell, Nai had made Tasser’s psionics to be strict copies of what she had.

And that had been the first illuminating discovery we’d made. I had made Nai’s psionics, so the set she’d made for Tasser had ultimately been a perfect copy, but a poor one.

“How’s it coming?” Tasser asked after only a few seconds.

whoops. “Give me a minute,” I told him. “I’m figuring out which parts are actually failing, and which ones are just misaligned.”

I asked Nai, who was riding in one of the other cars.

she sent.

One issue among many was that Tasser’s mental construct was falling apart, decaying, misaligning. I wasn’t sure what the exact mechanism was, but it was something in the middle of those three. I was pretty sure it was because it was a copy, or a copy of a copy depending on how you considered what I’d put in Nai’s head.

Regardless, my hope was that psionics I’d made firsthand would be more adaptable and resilient for Casti heads.

Another problem was that Nai had somehow shoved the two pieces of the radio into one. Tasser couldn’t hand over just his transmitter. When Nai had the inspiration to shove mental Adeptry into a non-Adept’s head, she must have been going for simplicity.

She might have had the right idea though. Because of the myriad of unexpected things I found in Tasser’s new psionics, that was the one I didn’t change.

The construct being in one discrete piece made the transfer process more reliable.

“Alright,” I told him. “Get ready, it’s coming back.”

I’d cascaded his mind for good measure the first time he’d handed it over, but I wanted to try pushing the psionics into his mind without touching his head.

This experience, more than any other confirmed my previous suspicions.

The intractable gap between minds wasn’t due to any limitation on my part. Tasser had to be ready to ‘catch’ the psionics I sent toward him or else they were just lost into the ether. Whatever I made, once it was pushed beyond the confines of my mind, I had no direct control over.

But there was still plenty to control in how I pushed the construct out.

“” I alerted him.

“Ready…” he said, closing his eyes and concentrating. “” he said.

I gave him a thumbs up. The updated construct wasn’t really so much modified than it had been a completely new version I’d made from scratch. Hopefully it would solve the ‘copy of a copy’ accelerated decay.

Nai complained.

I speculated.

Nai said.

Tasser said.

I asked.

he said. “Hey Nemuleki, you want to try this stuff? It’s incredible.”

“No thanks,” she said from shotgun. “I’m content to let you be the proverbial lab rat here. Grami, you interested?”

Grami gave a firm click. “I’m extremely interested in the possibilities, but I think I’ll abstain for now.”

It probably wasn’t a good idea to add psionics to someone while they were driving. New sensations in the mind could be very distracting.

“Suit yourself,” I said. I told Tasser.

Tasser said.

he said.

Perfectly doable, that. I cut together some of my oldest vocabulary lists and reversed them, English words now had Starspeak definitions rather than vice-versa.

Tasser’s face lit up when he confirmed he could consult the page with a thought.

“” he breathed.

“Yeah, when I slow down to think about it, it’s no wonder I picked up the language so quickly.”

“” he said. “”

“Pick one,” I said, “I get what Nai was saying a bit more now. Constantly hearing you twice is bizarre.”

We continued to test things like that, referring to Nai occasionally from another car. I gave him a few more pages to peruse, but we quickly ran into a new problem.

he asked.

My hackles went up immediately. This might be precisely the kind of problem that had emerged with Nai and the insomniac mirror.

he replied.

This was trouble, but not unsolvable surely.

He was limited to keeping or ditching what he had. Why?

…Because he didn’t have the same tools I’d given Nai.

If a function wasn’t prebuilt into the construct, then it wouldn’t perform that function. Duh.

The transceiver did have a prebuilt off-switch. Tasser could enable it and disable it with a thought, because that was exactly how it had been built to operate.

But the pages were too simple. They didn’t have any mechanisms to interact with. It was just a plane picture shoved into the forefront of Tasser’s mind.

I handled my myriad pages with my psionic mega-construct, while I’d given Nai simple manipulative tools to allow her to perform her own alterations and tweaks. Tasser needed the same rudimentary tools I’d given Nai.

I told him.

I said.

Tasser said.

Nai preened, listening in.

I asked.

Nai said.

I admitted.

Tasser added.

I asked.

he said in English.

Oh good grief…

·····

“Eyes open,” Nemuleki said, both to us and into her radio. “We’re stopping at the top of this ridge for a while. We’re going to make a broadcast to Demon’s Pit, and I guarantee Ase Serralinitus is going to want to talk to both of you.”

It took a while to set up the radio equipment, but twenty minutes after we’d stopped, we were talking to Demon’s Pit.

“Insanity,” Serralinitus swore after Nemuleki and Nai had reported.

“…Ours or theirs?” Nemuleki asked cautiously.

“Both honestly,” the Ase replied, “but theirs flies far more flagrantly than yours in this case. I’ll work on contacting both the Coils’ and the Prowlers’ leadership. I’m sure both will have very interesting things to say…”

“We’re losing daylight, Ase,” Nai said. “Is there anything else we can report on for you before we continue back to base?”

“Negative,” Ase Serral said, “you’re not coming back to Sassik Province. Not after what you just described.”

“Ase?” Nemuleki asked.

“We have sporadic reports of Vorak moving south towards us now. Their positions imply they’re Red Sails, but based on what you’ve told me, they’re Prowlers—almost certainly.”

“Vather might think Demon’s Pit is vulnerable without Nai there,” I guessed.

“It’s not,” Serral snorted, “but he might think so. No, your convoy is to head northeast, not south. Rahi Nai, Rahi Nemuleki, I’m issuing new orders: assault and take Ramshackle in the next three days. Get it operational and ready. Is that understood?”

“Yes Ase,” the co-commanders replied.

I asked Tasser.

Tasser replied.

Oh boy.

I was getting off this planet sooner than expected.