Azad
“They’re turning people into Dirzuga ?” Terrak said, obviously horrified at the prospect.
Azad shook her head. “No, that can’t be it, or not exactly. You’ve seen Dirzuga – you can tell they’re corpses. They don’t blink, they don’t breathe, they don’t move or speak naturally at all, and they don’t seem to remember who they were in life. They’re basically ventriloquist dummies. I know Qqurant was a little out of it at the meeting, but he wasn’t a walking corpse, and plenty of the people who’ve been compromised don’t show any level of impairment at all.”
“These samples aren’t exactly the same as the spores I’ve seen before, anyway,” Lonrah said. “They’ve clearly been altered, though I couldn’t say exactly how.”
“Give me your data,” Azad said. “I need to make a call.”
“To whom ?” Terrak demanded.
“This isn’t some personal crusade I’m on,” Azad said. “I’m going to report to my bosses and see what they can make of all this.” Lonrah transferred the data, and Azad sent it via encrypted channels, then ducked into a side room for privacy.
When her boss made contact, Azad said, “The mind-control stuff is made of Arborec spores, it looks like. Some modification of the process they use to reanimate corpses. Maybe the spores have been altered to turn living people into puppets, but puppets who retain their memories and at least a semblance of their personalities.”
Pause.
“Yeah, I spiked you the data, so you can get your science types to look into it.”
A longer pause.
Azad sighed. “Well, no, I doubt it’s the Arborec. I mean, they’re plants , they barely even interact with the rest of the galaxy, right? They trade with us, but otherwise, they just keep to themselves, doing… plant stuff. They don’t strike me as likely prospects for the secret masters of the galaxy. Nobody even thought about inviting them to the Greater Union or the stupid League of the Beleaguered the Letnev are putting together. The Arborec are a power, sure, but they’re not a major player in the great game of empires, and nobody gets the sense they really want to be.”
A much longer pause.
Talking to the boss was so weird, mostly because it wasn’t really talking . Azad could have carried on her half of the conversation without saying a word aloud, but she didn’t trust her thoughts to stay inside the lines. Better to put her thoughts into words, and be sure she conveyed what she intended, and nothing else.
She grunted. “Sure, but it can’t be that hard to get your hands on the spores. The Dirzuga are around. They probably leak the stuff out of every orifice. And once you get some spore samples, they’re just plants. Anybody could grow more, tweak them, do some genetic engineering… I don’t know. My shortlist would include the Hylar, since this sounds a lot like mad science, and the Brotherhood of Yin, since it sounds like biological mad science. The Letnev have a lot of experience with mushroom stuff, too, don’t they? This discovery doesn’t narrow down the ‘who’ much, admittedly, but it’s something. At least it’s a ‘how’. We can stop looking for evidence of android duplicates or light-based mirror-neuron manipulators and focus on the spores. You can get your people started on some kind of anti-fungal antidote, right?”
Brief pause.
“Ha, really? What a busy little bioweapons lab you must have.” Azad had worked for a lot of people and organizations, but her current employers kept surprising her with the depth and breadth of their resources.
Pause.
“Sure, sure, tweaks, tailoring, I get it. How long?”
Pause.
“Hmm, all right. Terrak’s friend can probably produce whatever we need if you send a recipe.”
Pause.
Azad was getting a headache. Long conversations with the boss tended to cause those. “That’s fine. I enjoy Terrak’s company, he’s got more contacts than I do in this sector, and he’s highly motivated to uncover the conspiracy. Why?”
Pause.
Ooh, that idea was nasty, even by her standards. She didn’t like it. Fortunately, she had operational authority, so she could brush the suggestion off. “Ha. I mean, yes, we do need a subject, but Terrak has uses beyond acting as a talking petri dish. We can find someone else to experiment on. People will do anything for money. Terrak might object to the testing protocol, though.”
A longer pause.
Azad chuckled. “True enough. Once he finds out the alternative is even worse, I’m sure he’ll go along.”