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Central Station
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The three of them huddled at a table in the Central Station dining hall. It was, Achelous mused, one of the few times in recent memory that he, Baryy, and Outish were all at Central Station at the same time. Usually, one of them was in-country. It felt odd to be drinking Temerish Orbit and sitting under the holovid ceiling instead of draining Bash-Me-Brains and listening to fiddlers at Murali’s. The 3D holovid of the spectacular Gnomegeron Chasm on Avaria was so vivid it gave him vertigo to look into the canyon, but Achelous preferred the primitive and real to the galactic and illusionary. His thoughts turned to Boyd’s laughing face and Marisa hugging him close. Dispelling the blissful visions and his brooding drift, he turned to the onerous business at hand. “Outish, you know that when the IDB leaves Dianis, your internship contract will terminate.”
Judging by his expression, Outish either hadn’t considered that eventuality or didn’t think it applied to him. The lad was drinking a benign herbal concoction he’d drummed up through the autoserv.
“And it is official; Dianis IDB will cease planet-side operations in forty-five days.”
“You mean...” Outish struggled. Whether he was under false perceptions, or he'd chosen to ignore stories of CivMon's departure, he was unprepared for reality. “You mean I’ll have to leave?”
Achelous knitted his brows. What was Outish thinking?
“But—no! That can’t happen; we’re on the verge of a major breakthrough. If we can isolate the chemical interaction in the kdel plant and prove it stimulates activation of the thalamus, it would be the biggest breakthrough in sixthsense since the discovery of the thalamus as the aural nexus.” Scientific debate still resonated in neuroscience circles as to the exact role of the thalamus in aural processing within in the brain, but the indisputable fact remained that the thalamus was the key to coordinating sixthsense abilities and controlling aural energy.
Achelous appeared unmoved.
“Atch, come on. The density of sixthsense in the Wedgewood population is a thousand times normal, and their capability graphs range from five to a hundred times normal. This is the only place in the federation with those numbers. Smokes, the Matrincy scours the galaxy for adepts a quarter as good as those here, and they find only a half dozen each year.”
Achelous drummed his fingers, which he never did unless he was stressed. “The Matrincy knows that Dianis, because of the Timberkeeps, has the highest concentration of human sensitives in the galaxy.”
Baryy stayed impassive, and regardless of how compelled he felt to aid the intern with the arguments, he'd been briefed by Achelous beforehand and told to stay out of it. So he sat on his hands and tried not to fidget.
“Yes,” Outish nodded fervently, “but they don’t know why! Is it genetics? We’ve proven it’s not replicable outside of Wedgewood; the population is highly localized. The symptoms point to environmental contamination, and that means a chemical. A chemical, if isolated and controlled, that could be used on other populations.” He paused and scratched at the table. “Assuming the cancers and DNA damage can be mitigated.”
Achelous hedged, “You think it is caused by chemical contamination. It could be a prion or some other pathogen.”
“That’s because we haven’t looked,” exasperation ruled Outish’s tone. “No one knows we should be looking. Except us.”
Reluctantly, Baryy weighed in on Achelous’s side. “The source of the brain tumors and increased sixthsense sensitivity could be coincidental and not related.”
Outish quickly rebutted, “Uh, I don’t think so. The odds of them not being related are astronomical. However, I will give you that perhaps the increased sensitivity is overcharging the brain and is causing the thalamus to mutate, and thus we have the cancers. The agent may cause the stimulation, and the stimulated activity is causing the DNA damage.”
Listening to Outish’s argument, Baryy had an idea, if we could do an autopsy, we could run a chemical analysis on both the thalamus and the tumor.
As if on cue, Outish completed Baryy’s thought, “We need so much more testing. A molecular scan of a live sensitive’s brain will tell us much of what we need to know about the effects on the brain and any chemical buildup.”
“That’s a good idea,” said Baryy. “It’s not something I’ve considered, but I suppose that’s why you’re the astrobiologist, and I’m the sociologist.”
“Now is not the time to leave,” the intern pleaded. “If I can isolate the causal agent, not only would I get my astrobiologist certification, I’d get an accreditation.”
Achelous smiled inwardly. He couldn’t blame the young internist, new to the field, unproven, and unlettered, for having a hearty amount of self-interest. In fact, he was counting on it. Now was the time to fan the flames. It bothered his conscience that he was manipulating the young man, but in the quest to face and defeat Nordarken Mining, the end justified the means. Imperial Sanctum, Ultimate Cause. “If you were to find the cause of the increase in Timberkeep adepts, the Matrincy would probably give you the Federation Insight Prize.”
Outish’s eyes popped out. “You think so?!”
Baryy covered his face and rubbed his hairline. He didn’t know whether to grimace or laugh. Although, it would just be the intern’s dumb luck...
Achelous nodded, “It’s the Matrincy adepts, the few we possess, that have changed our tactics against the Turboii’s cloned minions. Being able to telepathically intercept the Turboii command messages has proven to be a decisive battlefield advantage.” Outish drank in every word. “That’s why, at every opportunity, the Turboii single-out and attack our adepts.” Achelous changed subjects. “Baryy and I are taking a sabbatical. We’re not going to Dominicus III, at least not now. And you, since you are an internist to IDB Dianis, will have your contract terminated.”
Outish’s brown eyes started to well up, and he dropped his head. “You’ll still have your intern commission from your institute, of course, but you just won’t be able to fulfill it with us.”
Outish mumbled, “I’ll have to start all over on my certification. My time here will be wasted. I’ll have to find another research program.” He lifted up his head, tears in his eyes, “Do you know how hard it is to find an astrobiologist research billet on the human side? All the astrobiologists coming out of school are being fed into Turboii and sizar minion anatomy studies. It’s grunt work, counting and cataloging genes, DNA sequencing. The research directors are getting all the glory.”
Achelous nodded. He’d been the one to approve Outish’s application to Dianis. “Well, fortunately for you, just because your intern contract expires does not mean you immediately have to find employment.” He looked at Baryy, then back to Outish. “You have time to find another program.”
“But I’ve been here a year and a half! I was just now getting into the field. Learning real stuff. Seeing firsthand the natives interacting within their biosphere!” For Outish, to give up on his dream and start over was a crushing blow. He’d even sacrificed and undergone gene transition into the physical appearance of a human, a physiology he was only now growing accustomed to.
It pained Achelous to watch the lad squirm and suffer, but he had to make sure when he made the offer that Outish was committed and would not renege. Too much was at stake. He sensed Baryy beside him was becoming exasperated with his treatment of the intern, but it had to be done this way. “Interesting thing about information systems. You would think with Ether storage, X-Light data transfer, and AI control, that the systems would have evolved over the years, but they still have the same problems.”
Outish blinked, wondering what data had to do with his predicament.
“Your internship is registered against Dianis under the ULUP Authorized and Licensed Agents Registry.
“Yeah,” Outish said uncertainly.
“The agency through which you gained the authorization is IDB Dianis.”
“Yes?”
“If the link between your ULUP authorization record and the agency responsible for administering your activities were dropped, there’d be nothing to connect you with us.”
Outish frowned, trying to comprehend what Achelous was saying.
Baryy spelled it out for him. “You’d be what they call an orphaned actor, able to roam about Dianis at will, without fear of prosecution until someone found you, checked your authorization and discovered you had no supervising agency. At that time, they would have no recourse but to assign you to IDB Sector Operations. Sector Ops would then rescind your authorization because they won't have a Dianis billet.”
“You would immediately be escorted off the planet,” supplied Achelous, “they’d probably yell and threaten, but there’d be nothing else they could officially do.”
“Except for bitch at the Chief Inspector of Dianis CivMon and ask him how an intern was allowed to roam about a Class E world without a supervising agency.” Baryy smiled at Achelous.
“Yes, and they'd first have to find Outish, follow his credentials records, and then find me.”
A gleam resurrected in the intern’s eyes. “How do I get this link dropped?”
Achelous shrugged, “Things happen. Data is moved around, edits are made, transformations are loaded. Data can be corrupted, even in the Ether. There can be unintended side effects of modeling changes. Stuff happens.”
Outish peered at the chief inspector. He decided it was best not to know too much, especially if someone conducted a memory scan. He chewed on it some more. “So I’d be able to write the research paper and file the findings?”
Baryy nodded. “Yes. But you’d have to do it before your presence planet-side was discovered. You’d have to keep a low profile and be very discrete.” In other words, operate in secret, but he didn't say that. “The minute you publish the paper, all attention will be focused on you, and the Matrincy will come looking. So the paper had better be complete. You’ll get one shot at it. Nail the research; get your facts validated.”
“But I’ll need access to a lab. I’ll be alone. All my data will be anecdotal. How will I live on the planet and do my research?” Achelous slid a sheet of old-fashioned paper across the table, along with an ink pen. “On that paper, nowhere else,” Achelous stressed, “Write down everything you need to conduct your analysis. Equipment, materials, info cubes, whatever.” He looked at the intern whose hopes and aspirations were plainly etched upon his visage. “What we seek to do, Outish is transformative. For Dianis, for the Timberkeeps, for humans, and for the Turboii War. Baryy wants to save the Timberkeeps from dying out. You want to publish the findings of Timberkeep sensitivity, which will have far-reaching implications for the Turboii War and humanity in general.” He paused. “And I want to protect Dianis, like all of us, from the depredations of the extrasolars that we know are coming. To do all that, we’ll need each other.”
Outish stopped breathing. He deciphered the ramifications of what Achelous had just said. The team is staying on Dianis without the IDB’s permission. A chill ran down his back and would have raised his hackles if he were still in Halorite form. Achelous and Baryy have it all planned out. The chief, arch enforcer of ULUP, the master pursuer of extrasolars, is breaking the rules and going off station. Outish had the stark feeling that Achelous was something other than the distracted and distant cultural anthropologist he’d taken him to be. The word zealot came to mind. Does that bother me? He thought about his research and what it would mean to his career. He considered the alternative of having to find another research billet and starting over, knowing the secret of aural activation was his to pursue. He could not accept leaving it for someone else to discover. No, it doesn’t bother me that Atch is a zealot. Maybe that’s a good thing.
Not one to assess risk or even care, Outish said, “I’m in.”
