Chapter 17

Mismis came to the world, hidden from Sloom. Mismis moved within the boundaries of the stone. Mismis was responsible for when the layers did not meet quite right, and the stones would shift unexpectedly. Mismis was responsible for the pockets of gas or liquid that would form between the layers. Mismis created the disturbances in the patterns. The Sree told Sloom about Mismis. Sloom forced Mismis from the stone, banishing him from his gaze,forever banning him from returning.

- Teachings of Krkl, First in the Light

Just before she was ready to quit for midday meal, Liuani received a notification from the system that Hyusef had posted his report. There was a brief note for her to let her know that he was finished with his analysis, and that he would be available for any discussion she might want after she had a chance to go over his report.

That accounted for two members of the team so far. She was looking forward to reading his report when she was finished with hers, but before she put together the summary for the project. His research method was very similar to hers. Hyusef looked at the data in a different way though. Where Liuani preferred to break the data into different categories to be analyzed separately, Hyusef would look at the data as a whole and work from the beginning of the data to the end. His report would consist of a series of points, arbitrarily chosen by him, to reflect what he considered to be significant points in the data.

Hyusef’s position was that it was the dominant cultural elements in the race that drove the changes, both sociologically and technologically. His belief was that by tracing the dominant cultures through the history of a race, you would better understand the origins of any significant changes in the race as a whole.

Liuani had seen some of his projects before, mainly when she was studying to become a researcher. He always made compelling arguments in defense of his positions. But as much as she appreciated the analysis he provided, Liuani had always thought that it was taking some things for granted.

Liuani accepted Hyusef’s argument that the dominant culture directed overall movement within the race. But she contested that only going by that argument meant other forces, usually extraordinary individuals, can have significant impact on the development of a race. As far as she is concerned, this is where his arguments fail at providing a proper understanding of a race.

Of course it did not help that Hyusef had been a researcher since before her birth. That he had presented a number of widely respected reports before she had finished her training. His research into the development of the Brek Space Exploration Group is considered definitive. This explained a lot of the resistance to her form of analysis, which usually took twice as much time to do as Hyusef’s method.

Liuani was confident in the method she used to conduct her research, but when she had seen Hyusef’s name in the group list she had not been sure what she should think. Her specialization is well known, if less acknowledged than his, but it couldn’t have been an accident to have two researchers with very similar backgrounds working on the same project.

Maybe that is what I should be considering, she reasoned. The very differences that we have in how we approach our projects, would that be enough of a reason for us to be on the same one? It occurred to Liuani that seeing as how the similarity in specializations had to be known to whoever had put this team together. Then why wasn’t Hyusef put in charge of this project?

As Liuani was leaving she tried to contact Rysal. Liuani wanted to encourage her to take a break and join her for lunch. While she was at it, maybe convince her to come out with her for an evening meal and maybe check the Sonodal races. Rysal accepted the connection after a few seconds. Liuani was a little surprised she accepted as fast as she did.

“Hello Rysal! It is time to consume food, and replenish energy! How about joining me for nutrition and entertainment?” Liuani tried to put as much enthusiasm and energy as she could into the invitation.

“Nutrition...yes, food is an essential part of the process...interesting to see, but not...entertainment? What? Liuani? Why am I talking with you? When did you connect?”

“What do you mean, why are you talking with me? I connected to you to convince you to escape your lab and join me for a midday meal! Come on Rysal, you have been in there every night working. You need to take a break, and stretch every now and then. Later tonight, we can catch the Sonodal races.”

“Take a break? I find something that is impossible, and you want me to take a break!? That’s ridiculous. I would have expected you to know me better than that.”

“Impossible? What is impossible? Rysal you are not making any sense. What is so impossible about taking a night off?” Liuani was seriously confused now. This was not the reaction that she had expected.

“Taking the time off is not what is impossible...well it is kind of, but not in that way. Look, you are finished for the morning, right? Then why don’t you come down to my lab and I will show you why food is not important at this time.”

With that last word, Rysal disconnected.

Liuani had never heard that from Rysal before. Without another thought to the reasons behind her team’s members, she exited her office at a fair pace. The walk to Rysal’s lab was faster than she had expected, only taking a couple minutes. When she walked in, Rysal was standing by the bench, staring at the projection over it. Liuani could hear her mumbling from the entrance to the lab.

Liuani had known Rysal for many cycles. They had become acquainted in their youth, Rysal was several cycles younger than Liuani but because of her amazing intellectual ability, she had been on an accelerated learning pace. Liuani had been amazed at Rysal’s intellectual abilities from the beginning. She recognized that Rysal was the type of Sel that could focus so intensely on something that the rest of the world might as well not exist.

They had shared accommodations during the final stages of their preparatory education before choosing their specializations. Liuani had known for some time that her focus would not be in the sciences. She had scored well in the qualification exams, but she did not have any interest in those fields. She did not know which field of the social sciences would be her final one, but there was no doubt that would be her destination.

Rysal had always been aiming for the theoretical sciences. The information that she would be studying in preparation for her courses always left Liuani wondering if it was written in the same language. Rysal took it all in, as if it was the simplest thing in the world.

All of this flitted through Liuani’s mind as she saw Rysal immediately as she entered the lab. Rysal’s body was completely still except for the tip of her tail. It was rigidly still except for the tip that seemed to move randomly, in quick, short motions...left, up, up, right, left, down. The last time that Liuani had seen Rysal like this was the first time that she had to present her thesis for entrance to the program at the institute they both would be attending.

Liuani had come to know that when Rysal was like this, she was completely focused on something, her amazing intellect too busy attending to the problem. This spoke more to Liuani about what Rysal was vaguely referring to than most anything else could have.

“Okay, what is the impossible thing that stands between you and food?”

Rysal did not react to the question. Liuani was not sure that she had even heard it, she gave no indication that she was aware of anyone else in the lab. Looking around, Liuani noticed the human subject was in the suspension field for the scanner. She had seen the pictures on file and with her research had seen a lot of video but seeing it in front of her really brought to her it’s, no...his...size. She knew that the subject was a male of the species and she should not have a problem thinking of him that way.

The average Sel was 1.4 meters, about 62 kilograms. The human subject was a significant amount more. According to the scans, he is 1.93 meters tall and and massed 103 kilograms. The medical scans had identified some scarring on his body, indicative of his being injured in the past. The field was clear enough that Liuani was able to see he had very little in the way of body hair, predominantly in the area of his reproductive organs and some on his chest. His skin had an almost uniform light brown colour to it and the hair was black. She could also make out the scarring on his lower torso, left shoulder and left leg.

She was surprised at the muscular definition so clearly displayed on his body. It is very likely that he would be stronger than most Sel.

Liuani closed the distance to her friend and tapped her lightly on the shoulder. “Rysal! What did you want to show me?”

This finally managed to get her attention. Rysal gave a bit of a start at the tap, but after a quick look back and seeing Liuani, looked back at the display again.

“Give me a minute to adjust the image.”

Liuani had no idea what Rysal had been looking at. It had looked like a square of...something, completely uniform in colour. She watched Rysal make some adjustments to the interface on the bench and the image disappeared and one of the human replaced it.

“Liuani, you know that to take a scan with the new resolution takes about an hour. I had the subject brought to my lab yesterday to get the scan done before leaving for the day. After 3 hours, the scan was still going. I checked with the computer and it could not tell me why the scan was taking so long, but it did say that based on the speed of the scan at this time, it would take another 9 hours to complete.”

“I was thinking that if the initial scan was going to take 12 hours, then I had no idea how long the analysis would take. I was hoping it would not be too long when I came in this morning. As it was, the system gave me good news when it informed me that the scan had finished when predicted. When I inquired about the expected finish for the analysis, I was told it was already finished.”

Liuani knew better than to interrupt Rysal at this point, not like she would have any more to offer as an explanation for this than Rysal must already have. She looked at Rysal attentively, waiting for the inevitable revelation as to the cause of this unusual event.

Rysal continued speaking, turning partially back toward the bench with the image still hovering above it.

“I told the computer to bring up the scan and file the frequency for the Wysallean field under a new grouping. Imagine my surprise when the system informed me that it could not file the frequency for the field. I told the system to clarify the problem, and it stated that the measured field extended to the full range of all frequencies the scan could cover.”

Liuani was not sure what she should say to this. She was far from an expert on this field, but she did know that something like Rysal was saying was not supposed to be even possible.

“What does that mean?”

“It means that there is something about ’Humans’ that is unique to the best of our knowledge. It means that the Wysallean field is even more of a mystery than we had previously speculated. It means our previous understanding of the particles themselves needs to be re-evaluated. It means that we need to get more ’Humans’ for study.”

As she spoke, Rysal turned to face Liuani and for the first time Liuani could see her face. It was immediately clear that Rysal was very excited by this discovery. She could understand why that would be. It is not often a researcher gets to rewrite some of the accepted basis for scientific principle. It occurred to Liuani that the last breakthrough of this magnitude hasn’t happened for at least 50 cycles. She suspected that it was the discovery of the Wysallean field itself that would qualify as the last equivalent discovery.

Liuani couldn’t help but wonder if this...uniqueness...has manifested any other signs within their culture. Rysal had been on the verge of demonstrating that every race had a Wysallean field, apparently different from that found in the Sel if the frequencies are any evidence. Liuani did not know how she would look for signs of it, but she decided it would be necessary to take a closer look at the societies there and see how they compare to other races at the same stage of development.

Liuani knew there were going to be problems trying to compare across races. Races always developed in unique ways, that is a necessity of the environment they develop in. Certainly on the surface there was nothing that gave any big indication that they were different. But if she could discover something...anything, that gave the same kind of indication, it would be the highlight of her professional life to this point.

Rysal manipulated the display again, bringing up a second image over the work space. Liuani could tell that the second image was a Sel, herself, she realized as she recognized the image. Then Rysal brought up another, this time it was a Manavala.

“Look at the fields for our race and the Manavala.”

Liuani looked but did not see anything different. The system displayed the fields as a translucent field, not evenly translucent, some parts darker than others, constantly shifting through the field. She could not help but look at the scan for the Human next. The difference was immediately apparent. The field displayed for the Human was almost opaque...evenly at that. There were no uneven patches in the field that was displayed for him. It was almost like there was a bubble centred around his head. She could not help the quick glance at the subject still suspended over the scan platform.

Of course there was no sign of this to the naked eye.

“What are you going to do next?”, She turned to Rysal.

“First I need to arrange for someone from the institute in KongonFlow to do the same scan from their systems. Then I need to request they get at least one more Human subject to compare this with. No 2 individuals ever scanned have had the same frequency for the Wysallean field. I can’t imagine what I will get from scanning another Human. I will also need to speak to the design engineers for the scanner again to see about expanding the scan range, we might need to open it by an order of magnitude to properly look into this.”

It was obvious to Liuani that Rysal was already thinking much farther ahead and planning for contingencies. This was a very significant discovery well it would be once it was verified by a separate researcher. But Liuani thought it extremely unlikely that Rysal would have made this kind of mistake.

Liuani was at a bit of a loss now. She had come here to convince Rysal to take a break and now she knew that was not going to be happening any time soon. But another part of her felt the need to try. Rysal had been spending too much time on this and needed to get out.

“Ok, that shouldn’t take too long to request. How about once you put in those requests, we go out and get a celebratory feast?”

“That is unexpected.”

“Not really, remember the reason that I contacted you earlier was to see if you were interested in getting together for a meal tonight. Now we just have something to celebrate.”

“What is that?”

Liuani could tell that Rysal was not hearing her again. She moved up beside her and took a closer look at the scan that seemed to be holding Rysal’s attention.

“Ok, you win. What is so interesting about the scan...aside from the already stated uniqueness?”

Rysal was silent, apparently not hearing this question either. Liuani was about to try again, with a bit more volume, when Rysal seemed to answer her question.

“The anomaly that was present in the other scan of the security tech, well the system is indicating that the Human’s scan is showing a similar deviation. Only this time the activity level is about 600% more. The opaqueness of the field does not seem to affect the detection of the anomaly, but it is affecting the intensity of the observed effect.”

Liuani knew that Rysal would not be going anywhere for a while. So with a reluctant goodbye, which she was not completely sure that Rysal was aware of, she exited the lab. As she was leaving she decided to send a quick message to Surot to see if he would be around for midday meal tomorrow.

She remembered that he was a fan of Sonodal racing, she should have asked him to come out with her.

Liuani was surprised to find a message waiting for her the after her meal, when she connected to the institution network. Krissel was finished her study and had put it up on the system for Liuani to incorporate into the finished project.

There was a note from Krissel addressed to Liuani, attached to the file.

’Hello, I just wanted to formally notify you that I was finished with my research. I wanted to draw your attention to some points though that I found interesting. I recommend you take a look at my analysis regarding what I have concluded are 3 anomalies in the technical history of Humans. There are potentially more, depending on how you interpret the information available, but I would say that these 3 are the most interesting, and overt. I am inclined to say that they make a compelling argument that there have been other visitations, by other interstellar beings or societies. I would be interested in your response to this possibility, when you have finished your analysis of course.’

Other interstellar societies? Alright, that is something Liuani had not been expecting. Liuani had had her own suspicions based on what her research had suggested. The fact that Krissel was also seeing something, that suggested outside contact was interesting.

Liuani had her AI send requests for information to the representatives of the Brek, Mlassyn and Seswillin. She was requesting any information they might have on the intelligent race located where ’Earth’ was recorded to be. It would be funny if one of the other races had already been monitoring them.

Usually the Brek and Seswillin were not interested in other races, so it would be unlikely they would have been active enough to have the kinds of impacts that she and Krissel had taken note of. The Mlassyn were curious enough that they could have stuck around. But seeing as how none of the mythology she had come across so far, had anything like 1 meter tall, 8 limb-ed beings, she thought it unlikely.

As soon as she sent that off, her AI notified her that it had identified the passages that Liuani had defined under a secondary search criteria. The AI did qualify the statement, that it was not a 100% match of the criteria she had identified, but that it was the closest it could find in all of the material that had been recovered on philosophy and religion.

Liuani was not actually surprised to find that Humans had a version of the myth as well. All races had some myth regarding a great evil being cast out. It would be interesting to see how Humans described it. She had the AI copy all the relevant texts to a separate folder for later retrieval.

A couple of hours later and Liuani was ready to call it quits for the day. It was a little early but she wanted time to go over the data her AI had set aside, and figured it would be good to give the other team members a bit more time to finish their reports before she finished.

She had a number of queries, and organizational applications, running on the 20th century documents, she had included anything from the 21st century as well, as so little of it had passed yet. It would take them a few hours to get the data in the pattern she needed to parse it.

As she was leaving her office, she couldn’t get her mind off the discovery that Rysal seemed to be uncovering. Thinking of that got her to thinking that Rysal would stay down in that lab all the time for little enough reason, Liuani decided she had to make one more try to get her out of there, at least for a night.

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