Chapter 146: (Dreams) (2/2)
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”Which would be a violation of the Genetic Privacy Act among about a dozen other Confederate statutes,” Fights said, crossing her blade-arms.
”We simply ask for consent,” Dreams suggested.
”I'm not even sure that they can consent to something like that. You're talking about a complete genetic alteration. Removing intelligence unlocks, changing their size, changing their metabolism, changing their breeding cycle. You're talking about a complete rebuild of the being. They'd be better off if we took them to a Clone Worlds facility and just reskinned them,” Fights said. ”And that assumes that you can transfer their intellect to a new body since so far there is exactly one species that doesn't start to suffer problems with body-swapping.”
Dreams sighed. ”Can we save the Vuknaraan people?”
Fights nodded, reaching up and pushing on the brim of her cap to tilt it back slightly. ”Yes. It will take five to ten generations but with steady incremental changes we can return them to as near as I can tell original genome.”
Dreams sighed. ”I have gone out and met a half dozen of the Vuknaraan. Speaks went out and met with several.”
Fights signalled amusement. ”He's really getting on your nerves, isn't he?”
Dreams nodded, sighing again. ”I know it's his job, I know he's supposed to be the one who keeps me from self-aggrandizement and fits of narcissism, but it feels like he's deliberately out to just ruin my day.”
Fights snickered. ”I know he supposed to do this thing as his job but it feels like he's deliberately going out of his way to do his job,” she said, mimicking Dreams.
That made Dreams laugh. ”You are correct.”
”You are under considerable stress. Are you sure we should continue this course of action?” Fights asked.
”Those other two species will be another set of data-points at minimum, we may even find information we desperately need. If nothing else, we should, personally, tell those species that the Terran Confederacy is not holding those species responsible for what their adjusted diplomats attempted to do to me,” Dreams answered. She nibbled on the tip of her left bladearm, dulling it slightly.
”I agree. We need to hurry back. We're outside of the gestalt as well as have only been making reports via diplomatic torpedo. We need to let the Confederacy know where we're going to be so we can more updates on what is going on since the attempted assassination,” Fights said. ”We're right on the edge of just all following Sees down random paths.”
”I'm starting to feel as if she could see more clearly through this than I am able to,” Dreams said softly. ”As the humans say: it's hard to remember your original goal was to drain the swamp when you are asshole deep in angry alligators and have lost your knife.”
Fights snickered. ”We can just go back after we drop off the other two patients and reassure their species.”
Dreams shook her head. ”We are upon a trail. Don't ask me how I know, I just know. If we go back, it'll have terrible consequences.”
”And if we follow this trail?” Fights asked.
”It will have terrible consequences,” Dreams said, shaking her head again. ”Either way, there's going to be consequences, but I think it'll be fewer consequences if we follow this path.”
She pointed at the sky. ”Each of those two species hold keys to our mystery.”
Fights nodded. ”Are you still going with the theory that there is some other player behind the Lanaktallan, the theory that Speaks believes?”
Dreams shook her head again, nibbling on the point of her bladearm again. ”Partially. But I'm starting to lean toward the fact that the man behind the curtain was a Lanaktalln who went out, got drunk, and is now looking around wondering who the man behind the curtain is.”
Fights shrugged. ”Do you still want to go out and meet with each of the Civilized Species before we go back?”
Dreams nodded slowly. ”I think that might be for the best. I want to get a better look at the Civilized Species outside of the records.”
”You know that we're effectively at war, right? That we're taking a pretty high risk,” Fights said.
”Yes. But that risk may very well pay off great dividends if we can fracture the Lanaktallan alliance,” Dreams said. She pointed at the sky again. ”There's hundreds of trillions of Lanaktallans out there. They outnumber the Terran Descent Humans by ten, maybe even a hundred to one.”
”You're worried about the Terrans 1% the Lanaktallans,” Fights said.
Dreams shook her head. ”No. I doubt the Terrans are going to be willing to kill trillions of children just to break the Lanaktallans.”
”Then what are you so worried about?” Fights asked.
Dreams looked around herself at the comfortable palatial luxury room that Fights preferred to bring up on her eVR to relax with. She thought about it again, nibbling on the tip of her bladearm while she weighed all the information she possessed.
”I don't know. I've just got a vague feeling of dread that I can't shake. Just... something,” Dreams admitted. She stopped nibbling on her bladearm and tapped the blunted tip against the hard-light representation of a glass tabletop. ”To be honest, I'd rather die than be 'gentled', to be honest. Or to have my progeny gentled.”
Fights nodded. ”It's horrifying.”
Dreams shook her head. ”Now, imagine how the Terrans will react to someone attempting to gentle them.”
Fights shuddered. ”OK, that's definitely horrifying. They didn't react well to their own people trying to do the same thing in their history, who knows how they'll react if the Lanaktallan attempt it. That's probably what the feeling of dread you are suffering is from.”
Dreams not only shook her head but flashed several icons to signify a negative. ”No. It's not that. It's something I cannot put my finger on.”
Fights just made a non-committal noise, just sitting still and staring out the window to the 'garden' beyond the inlaid glass doors.
”Then we'll follow your winding trail through this forest that we cannot see the trees for the forest or the forest for the trees,” Fights said.
Dreams just nodded, sitting with Fights in silence
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The Vuknaraan homeworld dwindled on the screen as Dreams watched. The ship she was on and her escorts were preparing to make the jump to hyperspace.
In her room was only Mr. Rings, her two warborgs, and 117 with his Mosizlak escort.
”Did you get it?” Dreams asked the small green mantid, who was over fooling around with a broken comp-slate he'd brought with him from the planet.
117 flashed icons of success and assent.
”Is Speaks examining it?” Dreams asked, slowly petting Mr. Rings.
More flashing icons as 117 finally got the case open on the broken comp-slate.
Dreams sighed, watching 117 started examining the interior of the comp-slate, tapping various points to let his senses spread through the circuitry looking for the mechanical failure.
”Where did you get that?” Dreams asked, realizing that the design of the comp-slate was foreign.
117 flashed icons of primitiveness and sacred treasure.
”Tell me that you didn't steal it,” Dreams said.
117 flashed icons of trade.
”All right. What's so important?” Dreams asked, wondering why a simple broken slate was so important to the tiny engineer.
117 flashed icons of extreme age.
”All right. Let me know if you find anything important on it,” Dreams said. ”Are you sure, though, that you got all of it.”
Making a gesture of being put-upon 117 flashed a small animated image of a small green mantid shoving a bunch of stuff into a bag, checking other rooms and grabbing more stuff, even pulling boxes out from under dust and junk and then jamming the dust covered boxes, the junk, and the dust into the bag.
”All right, all right, I'm sorry, don't get all bent out of shape,” Dreams said, spreading her hands to mollify the green engineer.
The new animated image was of a gold mantis trying to juggle a bunch of anvils with a dozen anvils piled on top of her. 117 didn't even look up as he replaced the battery, adjusted the current and voltage, and began cleaning the power leads.
”Thank you for understanding I'm under pressure,” Dreams said. She gave a big sigh. ”I know what you did is permissible, I know we're at war, but grabbing their databases just seems like picking on someone weaker than me.”
117 flashed icons of people wandering off from an object and then a green mantid picking up the object, brushing dust off, and walking away with it.
The comp-slate made a noise and began booting up.
117 looked at Dreams, flashing an icon of smugness.
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Speaks took off the headset and leaned back slightly.
The problem was, 117 had managed to pull so much data it was like trying to find specific molecules while floating in the dark depths of an ocean. Some of the data hadn't even been error checked in millennia, some files had been written and never even opened.
Speaks opened up his personal terminal, loading up a bunch of boring documentary holo-vids, and began tearing them apart. Hidden inside the holo-vids were programs pertaining to his actual profession. Programs he'd need to start categorizing the massive amount of data.
All the data in the world didn't help you if it was just one big pile of jumbled characters and numbers.
Once he reassembled his programs, he put back on the headset, spread his hands to bring up his virtual controls, and began directing his programs in collating the data 117 had liberated.
For Speaks it was nice to return to intelligence gathering.
He just had to remember to run the data in multiple ways to avoid the eternal intelligence agent problem of 'garbage in-garbage out'.
He wasn't looking for some file where a dozen Lanaktallans confessed to their evil plan and explained every single point of their evil plan. That was lazy work.
He needed to put together a picture of what the Vuknaraan had realized, when they had realized, and what conclusions they had drawn from the information and evidence.
Humming to himself in pleasure, Speaks began to adjust his data array sorters.
Somewhere, in all of this data, had to be more breadcrumbs. The trick was to recognize them as breadcrumbs and to follow them where they led, not where he wanted to them to lead.