Chương 51: 033 – Among Unknown Aliens

Rain Falling On The Lake In Stillness—Falling Stillness to everyone else, because she thought the shorter name was the kind of impressive moniker an old monster would have—really wished she didn't have to be inside this clockwork can. It made sensing the essence in the environment difficult, especially since the human-made pod was designed to insulate its pilot from the outer armor in case of temperature extremes and shockwaves.

It was admittedly the sort of good-sense engineering that was beneficial for mortals and Symbols before they learned to open their heart, but was exceptionally frustrating for her, especially since it was unnecessary in her case. Her Cultivation protected her from disease, and a simple application of essence fueled by the cores spinning inside her purged her outer membrane of any bacteria and viruses, so she wasn't a risk of disease like the Kaedekin were worried about.

And the very fact that the Kaedekin actually worried about such contamination was telling, given the kyuees didn't. It implied that their Thaumaturgy didn't make them immune to disease the way the human's Flame and rakido's Vitaturgy did. And depending on their method of cloning, they might or might not have any inherited immunities either, although they obviously had infrastructure for disease control measures.

That implied fairly advanced medical science and technology, which was implied by their stated cloning technology but she now had a tentative second data point confirming it. She let her awareness of her photoreceptors linger on the screens showing the data stream of her armor's scanners. The results the equipment had been getting could only be described as deliberately unhelpful.

Every solid surface seemed to completely block the armor's sensors, sensors which were meant to be used inside ships to map out their layout, which implied the interior of the station was constructed specifically to block sensor scans. That included sonar, every frequency of electromagnetic radiation, and even a quantum thermograph.

That last had been secured to a weapon hardpoint and disguised as a name tag—because it seemed someone had tried thinking like the Kaedekin and that was the best they could come up with—and was currently mostly useless, both because its dependence on infrared meant that the same countermeasures that foiled conventional sensors was also effective on the medium the closest thing that the humans had to a hardware magic sensor relied on for sensing, and because magic was so prevalent in the space station the readings were saturated.

Of course, that was just the raw data she was seeing. A kyuee might be able to interpret it better. Still, Falling Stillness felt she was doing a fairly decent job of interpreting what it meant when there was a large concentration of 'heat' in her volunteer guide—who had very politely introduced herself as Julie—and another large concentration in their 'buddy'—who had been introduced as Schwartz. The Kaedekin had spirits in their arsenal.

Mass produced spirits given how each Kaedekin in QTG range had one on their person, unless their planet was so haunted everything with a mechanism as simple as hinge had a life of its own and needed to be negotiated with for anything to get done, they had a truly absurd amount of spirit stone to burn through to grow them and the knowledge to do so, or they'd manage to trap and completely subdue a powerful near-draconic spirit to shave down into smaller parts to break and train for their own purposes.

Admittedly, depending on whether their Thaumaturgy was capable of such a thing, that last would require a binding large enough to be mistaken for a city when viewed from space just to contain such a spirit's volume. If it wasn't, dozens to hundreds of Symbols would probably suffice. … She really needed to stop reading human-inspired science fiction, that last idea had shown up in three different series in the last fifty years as central plot points. Well, back to work.

She glanced at the statue of the human that the Kaedekin claimed had been a Cultivator of Essence. As much as she'd like to inquire further, perhaps establish a baseline of what effects Cultivation had on those with permanently solid body structures, it was only an intellectual curiosity at the moment. She'd been tasked to gain what actionable intelligence she could on the Kaedekin, so that's what she was to do. It was part of the price she had to put up with to go on space adventures.

While she could have gone on one of the star ships Fallen Star Academy had made… she might as well have just stayed at home in that case! Humans might be three different kinds of insane, but they were actually trying to build ships that could accommodate all species who were part of the Confederation. Apparently they regard science fiction stories as things to aim for rather than being entertaining thought exercises. She couldn't really say she hated it.

Pseudopods extended from her mass to grasp the power armor's controls, turning the external speakers back on as another pseudopod tapped out her notes so they'd be ready to go into her report.

"Well, that was interesting," she said, just to open the conversation as she guided the armor away from the very symbolically significant statuary. And it was, even if it sounded like the sort of philosophy-affirming propaganda fiction humans loved so much when they weren't consuming wish-fulfillment fantasy.

"But I suppose we should move on." Julie nodded. The button on the lapel of her dress—a neat, robe-like thing in blue and orange, with long voluminous sleeves, and a long pleated skirt—was red with a white border, while her armband was also red. Falling Stillness had gotten enough context to know that meant a commanding officer of some kind, though she couldn't estimate how large her command was.

"Where would you like to go next?" Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

"Is there a firing range nearby?"

"What kind?" Julie asked immediately.

"We have the stationary range, the skeet range, the active snipping range, the blast range, and the beam weapon range." Falling Stillness briefly hummed, stopped herself, then remembered most species couldn't hear that frequency.

"Why so many different kinds? Wouldn't one be sufficient, especially in a space station with limited space?" While Stargazer Fortress was admittedly very large, everyone knew that civilization expanded to take up all easily available space, so every bit of volume inside the station would naturally be sought after for something essential.

"Well, each kind of firing range is used for training with a different kind of target or different kind of gun," Julie said.

"But it's also because the firing ranges here in Stargazer Fortress are something of an attraction that most visitors eventually try at least once." The Kaedekin's expression flowed into 'I just had a great idea', which had the undertone of 'I've been thinking of this for a while and just thought of a natural way to introduce it, heh he I'm so smart'.

"If you want, we could go to one of the firing ranges that's nearby? You can observe it yourself, and maybe even do some target practice." The way she looked at the power armor's guns was hardly subtle. Falling Stillness had seen the same expression in human children getting flavored sugar from a bowl with the same enthusiasm as little buds swarming fermented fruit.

"I'd be interested in seeing that," Falling Stillness said.

"If you'd lead the way?"

"My pleasure," Julie said, beginning to walk down one of the paths leading away from the statues. Others had started doing the same, though a few were walking over the grass, and someone seemed to be taking a cutting and putting it into a sample tube.

"Can your armor handle stairs or will it need to be floated down?"

"We'll need to be floated down," Falling Stillness said. The Walking Egg—technically the PA-NHP-4L-X01, and humans were certainly earning their reputation for boredom there—could probably go down the spiraling stairs, but she doubt the Kaedekin would appreciate her popping out the armor's wheel and rolling down the stairway like it was a ramp. Julie frowned, visibly looking down at the armor's legs.

"All right. Though why can't you just use the wheels to roll down the stairway like a ramp?" … Ah, she'd forgotten. Despite how much they looked like it, the Kaedekin were not human.

"Well, if you think it's all right, I'm willing to try," Falling Stillness said cheerfully. Julie just nodded.

"You'll need to stay on the outside of the stairway so that if there's any loss of control the wall will take the hit first and give everyone else a chance to get out of your way."

"I will leave the arrangements to you," Falling Stillness said, because it would be arrogant and stupid to try to figure it out without help.

"We'll send everyone a ping to let them know," Julie informed her.

"Is there anything you want to know about while we make our way?" Falling Stillness looked at the armor's proximity sensors, which were still tracking the Kaedekin buds who were moving so much like a swarm it was both cute and mildly unnerving. She's seen swarms of little buds drown a pile of fermented fruit and leave absolutely nothing, not even seeds.

It's absolutely adorable to watch, until one remembered they used to execute recusants by destabilizing their cores, desiccating them, and having them be eaten by little buds.

"Will the little ones be following us all the way there?"

"Probably," Julie said.

"Let me ask. Hey! Will you little sisters be following us the whole time?"

"Poot, we've been spotted! Abort and exfil! Abort and exfil!"

"Regroup to secondary rally point!"

"Yes! Will that be all right?" Julie turned toward Falling Stillness as two-thirds of the Kaedekin buds start running away with commendable discipline, continuing to use trees, bushes, benches, adults, and what seemed to be public water fountains as cover.

"Will it be all right?" she repeated the question.

"As long as they don't plan to swarm and eat me," she said, and immediately regretted it.

"Of course not. You're not a recusant." Julie looked towards the Kaedekin buds again as Falling Stillness realized what the alien had just said.

"She says it's all right!"""" Yay!""""How do the Kaedekin know about recusants?" Falling Stillness asked warily.

"Your transmissions occasionally mentioned them," Julie said, and suddenly all those science fiction stories about aliens watching their dialogue dramas and serial operas to learn their language and ending up talking like an overdramatic actress come crashing into her memory, each one more embarrassing than the last. From the videos that the Captain had released, the Kaedekin had done exactly that to the humans, but surely…

"What kind of transmissions?" She's far too old and had too much potential energy to have any of her cores deviate and desynch, so the fear that they would was a wrong and very silly one, but…

"Oh, all of them," Julie said cheerfully.

"Your people make wonderful music, though we need to listen to them in a pool to properly feel the subsonic parts of the score, and even then we know we're missing something. And a lot of people are huge fans of your serial operas. I used to be a fan of ' The Journal of the Special Investigator Of The Academy Of The Winds' while I was growing up." The woman had surprisingly buddish tastes.

That opera was for little buds who were finally awakening to themselves and the world around them, meant to teach them about polite behavior and proper bureaucracy by giving it context. It was also one of those operas that have been on for basically forever, like that tiwada puppet show about their criminal justice system, or that human cartoon about the yellow-skinned caricatures. Still, it was good to know they hadn't lost any membrane with the Kaedekin—"Excuse me?"

The sudden voice took Falling Stillness by surprise, and she checked the proximity cameras to find one of the Kaedekin buds standing nearby. This one didn't seem to be carrying guns, although she had a small mace hanging from her belt, a metal mass on a short stick.

"Yes, little sister?" Julie asked.

"Is it all right if we follow closer?" the Kaedekin bud said.

"It's getting really tiring, crawling on the grass."