Post by Charlotte on Apr 11, 2021 13:54:10 GMT -5
OBROA-SKAI
“It can’t be real.” Doctor Nelaine leaned in, squinting at the hologram, and then abruptly stood back up, flashing an annoyed look toward the exposed second level of the lab. “Windows: dim, sixty percent.” When nothing at all happened with the windows, she repeated the order, louder. The glare off the ice outside continued to bathe every surface in the corner lab in painful brilliance. “Ustan! Ustan--the damn windows, please!” This, loudest of all.
From somewhere up there on the second level, Doctor Nelaine heard a slow growl of a voice say, “Windows: dim, sixty percent.”
At once, the bright light faded. A glance at the unbroken bank of windows showed them darkening as if they were never anything but obliging. At least Nelaine no longer had to squint. The hologram before her had not changed, but it struck a bolder contrast against Doctor Sasusham’s workspace now. There was nothing to see, just words to read. Seated, Sasusham had scooted aside for his senior, and now he spoke to her elbow. “It’s ludicrous,” he said, eager to avoid the collision of topics between the holo and the ongoing problems with their new university-provided lab space. Nelaine could have gone on for an hour about her theory that the semi-disconnected droid intelligence behind the lab was in love with the director, Doctor Ustan Filcere.
“I can believe someone would do it,” Nelaine said in a flat tone. Then, as she did in her written notes, in her papers, she tacked fragments of thoughts directly onto the tail of that. “If there was anything left to find on Mandalore at all. If they could be sure it was him. If it was still viable, even if they could make an ID. If they could get it out without anyone knowing.”
Working as they did by the grace of the grant gods of Obroa-skai, the trio of doctors currently in the flash new lab overlooking the Trei-mara river gorge understood the situation on Mandalore about as well as most of the galaxy did. They’d heard dozens of versions of events, and assumed that the truest ones were probably the dullest ones. More war; more warriors; more people trying their damnedest to make sure their enemies leaked their stuff out into the universe faster and more profoundly than they were made to leak themselves.
It was not that proper news about the situation did not exist. Rather, it was that the doctors had work to do, and a sense of desperation about doing it. All their lives, they struggled in an atmosphere of constant galactic recovery, but they had knowledge to chase. So they fought for money and for time and for space in which to work, and they fought for the kind of safety that was more than survival. They wanted the kind of safety in which they could debate and argue and push their understanding of their field. That their field was not particularly groundbreaking in itself was not a problem. They were taking a stand for the very act of learning itself, the very freedom to collect and then disseminate knowledge. It had become a mission, and the fact that they and their colleagues had each as individuals come to think of it that way only strengthened it as a quiet little movement. The essence was simple: they would never outrun, outmaneuver, outshout all the terrifying, vicious powers in play in the galaxy, if they let the inheritance of amassed knowledge continue to be disrupted.
So with their uncalloused hands, their modest desires for caf in the mornings, their willingness to remain indoors all day long, day after day, picking over already-ancient knowledge, the doctors saw themselves (not without irony) as a bit like warriors themselves. But their battle was one of preservation, and it would not be won with a planet-sized laser or a perfectly timed beheading. Their skirmishes were against each other and malfunctioning windows. And against this: somehow, a little bit of the galaxy’s weirdness had slipped through their defenses.
“Are you seeing this, Ustan?” Doctor Nelaine called up.
“You know, I really wish you wouldn’t shout all the time,” Ustan Filcere grumbled, coming to the edge of the second floor to glare down at Nelaine and Sasusham. “If you’d use your comms, no matter where we each might find ourselves, we could have nice civilized conversations in here, in nice quiet tones, at our leisure, as if the building were not on fire.” He turned toward the stairs to come down. “Also, I’m not certain what the alarm is about.”
“It’s not ‘alarm,’” Nelaine said shortly.
“Then the yelling is doubly unnecessary. I assume the message indicates no way to verify the thing without actually winning it.”
Nelaine shook her head, and Sasusham said, “So it can’t be real.”
“Ysep over at Buror told me Doctor Arut is scraping together a bid, and that they heard that Loxtica is interested.”
Ustan came over, but lost interest nearly at once when he saw that the hologram before them was no different from the one he’d seen at his own desk. “It’s a scam,” he said in disgust. “All of it. Arut wouldn’t fall for this. Even if it’s genuine, it’s worthless. What are they going to do, clone him?”
Sasusham had to shrug. “Just having it would get somebody into the spotlight.”
Ustan and Nelaine turned their heads and stared down at him. Spotlights meant grant money. They could also mean private money. And sometimes, spotlights meant trouble in this day and age, with mercs and rogue droids and Sith Whatevers just letting themselves right in through malfunctioning windows, glare be damned. Still, that funding notion wore some nice body armor.
None of them said anything, but there was a new light to contend with in their eyes, that of speculation, as they reread the header of the back-channel message.
FOR AUCTION
AUTHENTIC COMPLETE
BRAIN, SPINAL TISSUE
PERFECTLY PRESERVED
IDENTITY VERIFIED:
TLIN, SADHRIC