Chương 42: 026– Significant And Important Intelligence

"—is impossible!" Drasner exclaimed.

"It's just impossible! We've tried, you've tried, every known sentient species has tried, I bet even the kyuees have tried! Yes, sometimes the clone was found to have inherited their donor's magic, but they were just as likely to manifest Symbolism or more likely nothing at all! The kaykay claiming they have a cloning method that all but guarantees the clone having the same magic as their genetic donor is insane! Insane! It can't be done!" The rakido grit his teeth and took a deep breath, then let it out slowly.

"All right, I'm finished. Is there any more beer?" Phingrui reached out a tentacle, which seemed to lengthen in defiance of anatomy and snagged one of the few pouches of beers still chilling in the bowls.

"Here," he said.

"Thank you," Drasner said, calmly tearing off a corner and pouring the beer straight into his mouth until the pouch was empty. Then he sat back down onto his bunk and accepted the ice-cream carton, using the beer pouch to scoop it up. They'd long reached past the point of decorum and sanitation.

"So, being unable to use magic is rare for them?" he said in a more conversational voice now that he'd given voice to his disbelief to make himself feel better." Very rare, apparently." Falling Stillness said. The bowl that had held the chili was half-embedded in her body, slowly rotating to let her absorb every last drop of the accursed culinary war crime.

"There's apparently only one person on the planet who can't right now, and the attitude while discussing them was more like 'they can't figure out how to do it yet' than 'completely unable to'. Rain was talking like they had a learning disorder rather than a physical disability, since they seemed to think that person would figure it out soon."

"A people who are all capable of using their souls…" Tree Season said contemplatively." Nearly all," Orto corrected. At some point Phingui had moved their seat closer to everyone so they didn't need to use Whispering to be heard.

"A single being counted against a whole planet's population is practically the definition of statistical noise," Tree Season rebuffed.

"Besides, if human fiction is to be believed," Jrevno said, popping one of the puffed grain snacks into his mouth, "then that statistical noise probably has the strongest, most overpowered cheat skill on the planet."

"Proving once more that human fiction rots your brain," Xymel said. Everyone ignored them. The tiwada was something of an art snob.

"Can we get back to the horrifying idea of a whole civilization fully capable of magic?" Tree Season said.

"Because it it's not scaring you, then it should. Every civilization, even the humans, takes care to guard learning exactly how to use magic that's not Symbolism to keep the criminal elements from having easy access to it, and all essence scholars are in socially desirable positions to discourage them from becoming recusants. Even with all that, there are recusant essence scholars who are either violent criminals or 'terrorists', as the humans so quaintly put it.

A civilization where the entire population is able to use magic is a civilization where everyone is always armed. Even the children, the most consistently amoral, violent, and impulse uncontrolled part of a population. Children get into enough violent nonsense with each other when all they can do is actively gather essence." The Changer's body stilled, before compacting into a sphere that then settled back down into the mound they formed at rest.

"Horrifying to contemplate."

"I'd argue that the kaykay seem reasonably stable… but our sample set is literally limited to six people, all of whom are part of the group intended to represent the planet to visitors," Drasner said thoughtfully.

"And given the state of their atmosphere, we can't actually see how much damage they've done to their planet."

"I could ask how they keep their children under control when I'm over in their space station," Falling Stillness said innocently. Everyone back turned towards her.

"Oh, did I not get to mentioning that yet?" she said cheerfully.

"The kaykay asked if we—and by we, I mean the junior officers who were there that day—if we could be part of the group that visits. Apparently, they liked us."

"I though you needed to be in a suit so you didn't actually get the kaykay sick with something like Pale Spite," Drasner said. While the Changer shouldn't be a carrier for the disease—which in humans caused violent pale-colored diarrhea, body pains and calcium deficiency in their bones—her outer membrane would theoretically carry bacteria from the ship.

"Paladin Rain managed to convince the captain that it was all right to bring the powered armors so that we—and tiwada, I suppose—can be part of the first batch visiting."

"Wait, aren't those armed?"

"Apparently, the kaykay don't care," Falling Stillness said.

"They said as long as the safeties were on, then they had no problems with an armed power armor in their station."

"It's certainly a display of confidence," Phingui mused.

"Then again, with the magic you described, any one of the people in that station could probably deal with anything the armors we have can do." Manifesting pseudo-matter purely from magic was—or had once been, rather—the purview of Symbols, and only solid matter at that. Perhaps that knowledge was biasing his estimations, but given that it was the only analog to what the Kaedekin had demonstrated that came to mind…

"Actually, I got the sense that the kaykay wanted them to be armed so they could see the weapons," Falling Stillness said.

"Rain sounded really eager when she were trying to convince the captain it was all right to send the power armor." There was an audible pause as everyone considered that.

"Why…?" Orto didn't seem to know how to finish the question.

"It could be intelligence gathering," Efal suggested.

"Any who go about their space station wouldn't know how it usually looks under normal circumstances. If there's suddenly a disproportionate amount of… oh, decorative pillars disguising sensors, no one would be able to tell. For all we know, they could be scanning our bodies and giving us galls and burls." Everyone looked at Drasner.

"Even if I wanted to get rid of any blight on you, I probably wouldn't get the chance," he said.

"We all know everyone who comes back from that visit is going straight to a physical and an intelligence debriefing, and no way to know for sure which they'll send them to first." You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

"Bold of you to assume they'd wait that long and not start debriefing as soon as the kaykay are out of sight," Xymel said. The gathering eventually broke up, taking the remaining food and garbage away. As much as they wanted to discuss things, there just wasn't much to discuss, although confirmation about the existence of the Kaedekin's magic was nice. They had too little factual data, and just a lot of speculation and implication. Also, they needed sleep, because they had shifts coming up.

However, not everyone let a lack of anything factual stop them. The next day, all Drasner seemed to hear were wild speculation about the Kaedekin's 'force field technology'. Half of those he passed were talking about the 'amazing force field technology' that the Kaedekin had revealed, loudly and enthusiastically discussing the alleged technology's hypothetical applications.

Just walking to the mess hall for breakfast, Drasner heard crew members debating the parameters of the technology by pulling numbers out of their rectal sphincters, and using those imaginary numbers to argue that this amazing technology was no match for the Venture's armaments, because a force field would of course only repel physical objects using projected physical force, so of course the ship's lasers would go right through the force fields as if they weren't there and any battle would be short and victories in the ship's favor.

All of it was discussed with the kind of confidence and self-assurance that made one think the speaker actually knew what they were talking about, as opposed to basing all this on hearsay, indirect observations and their own imaginations. The other half were speculating how the 'technology' could be weaponized. Or more accurately, talking about how they would weaponize the technology… which seemed to involve trying to turn it into a focused beam of kinetic energy traveling at the speed of light…

so, essentially a laser, but with kinetic force, which would allow for shooting at targets with a payload of almost infinite mass…

except that wouldn't work, because that would essentially function as a thruster, and what you had was not a weapon but rather a purely energy-based reaction engine, and that as long as a ship could produce power for the force the force field generator it would have unlimited range, never mind the Horotract Fold Impeller installed on the ship already did that, and probably much more efficiently since it was a non-reaction drive.

It was hard to tell which of it was unironic seriousness and which was subtle mockery of the people speculating with no information. Outside of the unfounded technical speculation, there was also much talk about the kaykay's invitation to visit their space station while the vaccines against their diseases were still being developed.

People were speculating who would be included in the visit, and while no specific names were mentioned—save for the junior officers whom the kaykay had asked to be included like Falling Stillness—the discussion always seemed to meander to a hypothetical officer whose expertise would allow them to note significant and important intelligence about the aliens who just happened to coincidentally exactly match the speaker's abilities.

Drasner was not embarrassed to admit he was guilty of that latter, but as a Vitaturgist he felt he was far more qualified than Acjinres, with her seven literature degrees and her insistence that she would be able to gain a deep understanding of the Kaedekin's psychology simply by looking at the titles of their books. In Xymel's words, human literature had rotted her brain. Not that he would likely be up for consideration.

As part of the ship's medical corps, while his significant greater muscle mass, bone density, height, reach and skin hardness compared to his non-rakido colleagues meant he might be considered under normal circumstances, the fact that they would need to be restricted to suits meant that if anyone needed first aid—or stealthy Vitaturgy—would have already been exposed to the environment of the Kaedekin's station, which everyone was trying to avoid.

Still, as much as people would like to be included, everyone figured that the landing party sent would have as many analysts and intelligence officers as could be slipped into it without being blatantly obvious… until someone pointed out that the kaykay probably didn't know what an obvious analyst or intelligence officer looked like, so there probably didn't even need that much consideration.

Actually, given all the interest in the kaykay's 'force fields', the only ones outside of intelligence officers who might have a chance of getting to see the aliens' station would be… Rain kept an eye on the readings of her HUD from her suit sensors networked to the big, gun-shaped, full-power scanner that the Hale had put together in one of the station's makerlabs and was using to scan the modified Confederacy space suit in front of them.

While it was ostensibly for ensuring that nothing was leaking from the suit—and that was exactly what they were using it for—they were also using the overshoot of the scanners to scan as much of the ship as possible. Unfortunately, the scans of the port side of the ship still weren't coming through very well—two layers of armor was still a bit too thick with only a girl-portable scanner rig—but now they were finally getting good scans of the ship's engine room!

"I hope the suit is comfortable," Rain said sincerely as Hale slowly walked around the suit as second time, swinging the sensor up and down. It had been made to have a fan-like field instead of being omni-directional to concentrate its capabilities, hence the circle strafing to get all of the ship.

"People will be wearing these suits for hours. It would be very unfortunate if they chafed."

"That shouldn't be a problem," said Johnson, the engineer who'd been tasked to explain the 'smoke test' they were performing and answer any questions Rain and the others might have.

"The suits are designed to be loose to accommodate as many body proportions as possible, and anyone using it will be wearing an inner suit for both temperature regulation and padding."

"But is it comfortable in gravity?" Rain pressed. The suit looked bulky, and the backpack seemed to have large permanent components, unlike their own suit's modular system.

"It seems a bit… big."

"Oh, don't worry. The suit includes a frame to properly distribute the weight of the suit's back unit," Johnson said.

"A person can carry fifty kilos of weight all day without ill affect." Oh, good! She'd been worried there for a seco—wait. Rain looked at the suit again. So far, the chemical smoke they were passing through it's respiratory system still wasn't leaking, which was good, but her gaze was focused on how much of the back part of the suit jutted out.

"How deep does a chair or bench need to be for someone to be able to comfortably sit down while wearing the suit with a full air tank?" Johnson blinked, looking confused for a moment before realization seemed to come over him.

"Oh… people don't usually sit down when they wear this kind of suit. It's usually held suspended on a rack…" Rain frowned inside her helmet." Can you sit down when wearing this suit, then?" she asked.

"Well, it shouldn't be a problem. The range of motion of the hips allows for it. It's just a bit too heavy to stand up in easily unless something is taking the weight of the back components." She hummed thoughtfully. Then she turned towards Captain Trout.

"Captain Trout, would it be possible to ask someone to don an unmodified suit so we can measure how large of a seat they need to suit down comfortably? We need to be able provide places for our guests to rest without potentially damaging their suits, and I'm sure it would be very uncomfortable to be standing the whole time." If the Confederacy turned against them and decided to invade, she didn't want it to be because they had been bad hosts!

Captain Trout had a bemused look on his face again, though at this point Rain figured he was just easily confused. It didn't sound like a good trait to have in a ship's captain, who might need to react in an emergency when there are sudden attacks of space pirates, nanobot swarms, dragons, nanobot swarms, giant planet-eating evil god robots, nanobot swarms, idol singer superweapons, and nanobot swarms, but perhaps he was the kind who was very capable in a tense situation? Poise was like that.

As a human being, he'd been a mess who sometimes collapsed into the fetal position at random and needed to be hugged and told everything was going to be all right and he was very brave, but when it was time to be heroic the speedster was capable and super cool!

"I see… yes, I suppose having everyone stand the whole time would be uncomfortable. Johnson, do we have another suit nearby?"