Chapter 13

Mla created Dul. Dul was tasked with watching over the daily actions of the Mlassyn, and reporting those that were extraordinary. Dul wanted to ensure the Mlassyn who had done the extraordinary, were truly extraordinary. Those that could pass his tests, would be made known to Mla. Most could not.

- from The Early Times, Book of the Trials, Treatise of Mla

The next morning Liuani started the next section she had set aside. Liuani felt comfortable with her understanding of the historical overview of ’Humans’ now. The next section she had had the system partition was what fell under her definition of ’culture’ documents. She was expecting this to add quite a bit of detail and context to the historical summation.

She was a little annoyed when she was examining the computer’s summary of the files and she saw that she would have to rotate between 2748 different languages to be able to access all the data listed. She checked to see how the languages distributed the data and saw that she would be able to access 91.5% with just 57 languages. That left too much unexamined. In the end, she accepted that she would be working with 176 languages and that would allow her to access 96.9% of the data.

That was with the computer’s analysis saying that a lot of the data has been replicated across the different languages and this would discard the redundancies. The density of the data grows exponentially as it gets to the most recent dates, so over 75% of the data represents only the last 500 cycles of history for ’Humans’.

By the time her AI reminded her that she was supposed to meet Rysal and Surot for midday meal, she had managed to get through all the early material and was 350 cycles from the most recent entries. She realized that a lot of the video and audio data that had been brought back had been assigned to this category as well. It had not shown up yet, but it was referenced in the system and occupied fully 61% of the data listed in the last 100 cycles up to the most recent time.

But that was not something she was expecting that she would be getting into anytime soon. At least not for today. As she left the building, she noticed the clouds hanging still in the sky. That reminded her that there had been an announcement last night that the rain cycles would be starting up again. Thankfully they only ran for 10 to 15 days, depending on how much was needed. But it did serve to remind her that she would need to change her path to and from her office unless she wanted to get wet. She was glad that the pathway to the cafeteria was wide and accessible from the main entrance of her building.

As it was day time, the luminous glow that illuminated the pathways was a pleasant yellow and easily seen against the sky. The council had debated using a combination symbol and colour to indicate the pathways, but in the end it was decided that if it worked, why change it. Liuani had no opinion one way or the other, as long as they worked. Some Sel enjoyed the feeling of the rain, but Liuani was not one of them. The announcer the previous night had said that the rain will start in the mid-morning, about 1 centimeter per hour, stopping by midday.

She remembered studying the debates that had been held on the weather. When it first came about that they had figured out how to manage the weather and everyone realized that they did not have to work around it, a lot of Sel immediately thought it meant the end of rainy days. Of course it did not take too long before more logical brains made the reasonable argument that the rain was a necessity for the ecosystem, even the one in the cities. She had always thought it very funny how quickly the broadcasts of the time had gone from ’yay no more rain!’ to ’all things in balance!’. When she was younger, she would sometimes try to imagine how some of those conversations must have gone.

Liuani resisted the urge to sneeze as she made her way to the cafeteria. The rain always kicked up the dust but made it wet, and she was sure that she was among those that had a reaction to this time of year. She was tested a long time ago and it had not shown any environmental sensitivities, but she sure felt like she was getting a reaction. She knows that the rains are a necessity to keep the ecosystem in balance. She remembers her classes when she was much younger, going on and on about ’the balance’. But just because she knows the reason why, does not mean she had to like the effects.

Liuani had a brief thought about the place called ’Sahara’ on the ’Human’ homeworld. She remembered that the data indicated that it is sometimes cycles before any rain at all falls in some parts there. She could only imagine how such a pristine environment would feel or smell.

Surot and Rysal were already there when Liuani finally arrived. It looked like Rysal had not been paying attention, her scales showing she got a sprinkling of rain before she got under cover. Neither had food before them so they could not have been here for long.

“Hello. I had forgotten today was the beginning of the rains again.” Liuani mentioned.

“Well it looks like you did not get off the paths anyway.” Surot said this while casting a quick glance at Rysal. He seemed to be getting some enjoyment out of her soaking.

“Hello Liuani.” As she spoke Rysal finished selecting her meal, apparently unaware of the water on her.

“How did the request to use the ’Human’ subject go?”

“I have talked to my supervisor about it, but it is not a rush. I am having a harder time convincing him to make the adjustments to the scanner that I am sure are necessary.”

“Necessary? What kind of changes are you trying to make?” Liuani remembered that Rysal had talked about having to adjust the scanners again.

“Well, there is no way to know what frequency, if any, that the ’Human’ subject might have. So I need to have the scanners attuned to as wide a band as I can reasonably assume. I have checked the documentation on the scanners and I have messaged one of the creators of the newest filters. I expect to have some information before the end of today. Once I have that information, I can make a more precise request to have the scanners modified. At this time it looks like they can handle a range of about 13.5THz. I will see if I can get them set for the lowest possible frequency to the highest it can reach. If that does not show anything, I will just have to adjust them again until I get to the frequency range that they are in.”

“You did not say how the proof of your theory was received by your supervisor or colleagues. What happened?” Liuani asked.

“At this point, my supervisor was very surprised. My colleagues were shocked. What I don’t know is whether they were more shocked that I was able to detect something from the apparent chaos of the screen, or that the Wysallean field exists in other races.”

Surot had a surprised look on his face at this point. He had been thinking it more likely that her colleagues were right to begin with and hearing the opposite had shocked him a little.

“You were right? What was their race again...Manavala? You seriously detected a Wysallean field on this race?”

“You just heard me say that to Liuani, of course that is what we were talking about. What is so surprising about me being correct? I am very good in this field you know.” The last being said with a bit more emphasis than necessary in Liuani’s opinion.

Surot must have heard some of the emphasis as well and understood its source.

“First, I want to make it clear that I am not shocked that you are right. I’m very aware of how good you are in your field.” He said this in a calming and polite tone. “Grant me some cause to be leery of your claims. All of your colleagues, others who are also good in this field you have to admit, were of the opinion that there was nothing there. I have no hesitation to offer my congratulations. You fought for what you believed in the face of strong opposition, and won. That is very impressive.”

Surot just looked at Rysal now to see how she would react to his apology and acknowledgment of her success. Rysal decided that a polite bow, recognizing what he said, was the best reply that she could offer in return.

“As far as I am concerned the best thing to happen because of this, is that I expect they will not resist my request to have one of the scanners reconfigured to my specifications. Finding one other race that seems to have the Wysallean field is amazing. If I can do that with another, then I will have done what no other field researcher has, and I will be able to make my own research projects.”

Liuani waited for Rysal to add to that statement, but it was quickly obvious that that was all she had to say as she took a bite of her meal.

“That is it? You want to prove the existence of the Wysallean field so you can design your own projects? Have you really not given any thought to the potential ramifications of this discovery? I mean, finding it in two races would be amazing enough, but if you are able to demonstrate its existence in multiple races, the implications for evolution theory are beyond imagining.” Liuani was surprised at her friend’s apparent ignorance of this side to her discovery.

“Did you ignore everything I said in your lab yesterday?” Liuani was getting a little irritated with her friend now. “I know that you are ’focused’ on your projects, but I will tell you right now that when your supervisor passes on to his superiors what you have discovered, you are going to be very busy with a lot of different visitors.”

“If you say so, but I don’t really see what the issue is.” Rysal said dismissively.

Liuani decides to leave this alone, she makes a promise to herself not to say ’I told you so’ when the expected visitors start happening to Rysal...well, not too often anyway.

“Okay Surot, out with it. How goes training your replacement?” Liuani asked.

“Hmm?” Surot seemed to be caught off guard with the question. “She is doing fine. Her name is Trilsa. She was recently relocated here and seems quite eager to get into the position. As she has not been here that long, I had offered to show her around some tonight and she accepted. I was thinking of taking her to the presentation by Fural tonight.”

“Oh really? I thought the maximum attendance had been reached some days ago, how did you get access?”

“I had arranged the access when the show was first announced. I was planning on taking Wosul, but she decided to become exclusive in her relationship, so she turned me down. To be honest I had just planned on attending myself, but when I was told I would be training someone, I thought it would be a good opportunity. So I asked her if she would like to join me and she agreed.”

Liuani looked at Surot, she made no attempt to hide her cynicism at the innocence of his statements.

“So you just asked your new trainee to join you out of a desire to get to know her better, professionally? I don’t suppose she is attractive now is she?”

“I am sure that some would find her to be attractive. I did not really notice.”

“You said she was new here? I don’t suppose she relocated here from YllarisSom or thereabouts?” Liuani could not hide the glint in her eyes with her question.

“What are you getting at Liuani? Yes, she did mention that she was raised in the residential area outside YllarisSom. I don’t see the point of your question though.”

“Come on, admit it. I remember when we were at the academy, you always had a weakness for the blue on gold..hehe. I bet it was a surprise when she walked into your office the first day.” Liuani could not help chuckling at the image in her mind.

“Of course I was not surprised, I had made a point of looking up her file the previous day. Besides, it is not like I picked her from a list of candidates intentionally. She was assigned before I knew it was going to happen. If it so happens that I find her to be particularly attractive, then my good luck I guess.” Surot could not hide the smile by the time he was finished speaking.

“Of course it was luck to find out that she was as big a fan of Fural as I. So it worked out for all concerned.”

“As you say. I hope the both of you enjoy the presentation. I tried to get access but I missed the first day and all the seats were taken by the end of it. I would ask a favour though, if you don’t mind?”

“If I can, what do you want?”

“If he allows for this presentation, I would like to get a copy to experience later. I would appreciate this if you can get it.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem. As long as he is allowing that after the show.”

Surot’s com chimed with a message. He gave it a quick glance, but decided to check the message after seeing the alert. “Hmm, looks like we will be getting a visit from some Mlassyn visitors tomorrow. They are going to be shown through our section. Apparently they are curious about our procedures for the reconnaissance missions and want to see what we do for prep. Sounds like a good chance for my new assistant to practice for her new position.”

Surot looked cheery at the thought and quickly sent off a message to Trilsa apparently with some instructions regarding the pending visit. Something about that had caught Liuani’s attention. She was not sure how it would work but figured it could not hurt to suggest.

“Rysal, think you can get your scanners reconfigured by tomorrow?”

“I don’t know. Depends on what I hear back from the original designers of the filters and my supervisor. Why do you ask?”

“You just heard that some Mlassyn will be around tomorrow. You had mentioned that the only other subject that you had to scan was the ’Human’. If you can get the scanners adjusted in time, why not see if you can get the Mlassyn to agree to a scan? I don’t know if that is even a possibility, but I figured you would appreciate the option if it is available.”

Rysal did not need to think for too long to realize this was something she would definitely appreciate. Without responding to Liuani, Rysal took her com and started sending out messages quickly. She did not look up until she had sent at least five different messages.

“I should have thought of that! Thank you Liuani. Yes, that would be fantastic if I can get them to agree. I will message you later to let you know how it went.” With that comment, she got up out of her seat and headed somewhere in a hurry.

“I am guessing that she is not interested in a copy of Fural’s presentation then?” was Surot’s only comment as Rysal moved away.

“I would like to agree with you, but I would appreciate if you could see about getting two anyway. I know that she enjoys his work.”

Liuani headed back to her office soon after, getting a promise to hear back from Surot as soon as he had the copy of the presentation. Soon she was reviewing the data again. She was moving through the data much faster after going through the overall history first. She was able to understand the interrelationships much more quickly and could understand the various changes that were happening to the different ’Human’ cultures.

Liuani had almost finished the last era she was planning on doing for the day when her system chimed to let her know someone wanted to connect. She accepted the connection once she saw it was from Rysal.

“Liuani! It is done!” Rysal had a very satisfied expression.

“What is done? Is this about the scanner, the Mlassyn visitors, the ’Human’ subject...what?”

“All of it. My supervisor had passed my report to his superiors, apparently he had marked it important for some reason, but whatever his reasons they examined it and he has informed me that I have a priority for whatever I need. Within reason of course, but I just need to ask.”

“That sounds fantastic. So when are you going to get started?”

“It seems I am very fortunate today. Remember I said that I had messaged one of the members of the team that had developed the new filters for the scanners? Well, he responded shortly after I got back from the meal. When I explained what I was looking to do to the scanners, he could not understand why I would want such a broad range, but he let me know it was easily done. According to him, the configuration for the range is a small modification. He was able to access the scanners in my office and make the necessary modifications while I was chatting with him.”

“Whoa, did you clear that with your supervisor? I am thinking that is not likely. You don’t think that he might not like that kind of radical change to both scanners? I mean he is responsible for them in the end right? What if this results in unexpected damages?”

“He is the one that said I get a priority for access to equipment to followup my research. I believe that making this modification easily falls into this category. Besides, I had one of the security techs come in and I ran a test scan on him to verify it works. There were no problems with the scanners.”

“Okay, okay. I am just saying it might have been nice if you had thought to run your idea past him before committing yourself that way.” Liuani said trying to placate Rysal. “How did the new scan turn out? I can only imagine that it must have taken some time to resolve with all the new data.”

“I will send my supervisor a note when I am finished chatting with you, just to make him aware of the change. I still believe modifying the scanners was the right action. But I understand what you are saying about his being responsible for the equipment.” Liuani could see Rysal sit down and was obviously accessing her system.

“As for the scan, yes that is taking a lot longer to process. According to my system here, it expects to finish processing the scan sometime tonight. It should be ready for my review by the time that I come in tomorrow morning.” Rysal had finished checking her system.

“Well, it sounds like you have been completely vindicated then. I can only imagine how satisfying that must be to you after the resistance that everyone put up.”

“Even better than that. My supervisor let me know that a request was passed on to the Mlassyn visitors asking if they would be willing to participate in my research. I should have an answer by tomorrow.”

“Sounds great. Do they have any idea what your research is about? How much do they know about Wysallean fields? I don’t think it is too likely that other races are even aware that we are researching this.” Liuani tried not to sound too pessimistic.

“Well...I expect that if they want to know, someone will tell them. If they have any questions they can always contact me for clarification.” Rysal looked a little confused that Liuani would be asking this.

“Still, if you really want them to participate, I suggest you see if you can contact them tomorrow to go over the research and reassure them. Just a suggestion, it might not matter and they might contact you first.”

Rysal was silent for a minute, apparently thinking over the suggestion. It did not take her long to come to a decision. “I will check with my supervisor in the morning to see what they were told.”

Liuani knew better than to try and convince her of doing more, besides she might be right. It is possible that the Mlassyn visitors were well informed of the research already. Either way, it was not something that she was too worried about.

Liuani did not hear from Rysal the next day. She did not notice until her midday meal, Surot made it but there was no sign of Rysal. She messaged her asking if she was going to be joining them. They got a reply about 15 minutes later. Rysal just stated that she was in the middle of her research and had not noticed the time. She was not going to make the meal and apologized for not thinking to let them know earlier.

Liuani was able to get a lot accomplished that afternoon. By the time she was ready to leave, she had reached the beginning of what was referred to as the twentieth century. She was a little surprised at the amount of data still to go through with so little time left on the timeline at that point.

The next day Liuani came in a little earlier and was able to get up to something called ’the time of disco’. She wasn’t very fond of the music that humans seemed to love at that time, but she could see that music did hold a powerful influence in many facets of life at that time. The gathering that was called ’Woodstock’ put her more in mind of a religious event than a social one. Though she was quick to acknowledge that music did seem to play a large part in every society on the ’Human’ world.

It was still raining when she went for her midday meal, but at least by this time, most of the ground was too wet to kick up any real dust so she was not sneezing much at all. When she saw Surot she could tell he was excited. No sign of Rysal again. This was a little surprising.

Liuani greeted Surot and took a seat at the table. He looked like he had something to say, but was being polite enough to wait for her to place her order. Liuani thought briefly of waiting for Rysal in case she was just delayed, but decided to go ahead.

“I take it that you have not heard from Rysal either?” Surot had asked as soon as she was done ordering.

“No, I expected to see her here. Have you heard anything? Do you know if the Mlassyn visitors got through ok? I know that she had been expecting to see them yesterday to get scanned, but I had the impression that there might be complications.”

“No, I have not heard anything from her. I had been hoping she would be here today. I am starting my new position tomorrow and don’t know if I will be available for midday meals at this time.” Surot gave a wry smile at his next thought. “I mean you know how irritated it makes Rysal when one of us suddenly decides to eat at another time without much warning to everyone else.”

“Give me a minute to see if she answers a message.” Liuani took out her com as she spoke.

Liuani sent a short message to Rysal about the meal and then focused on talking to Surot about his new position. It took about 20 minutes this time before she got a reply. This one was more succinct than the one yesterday. Rysal just said she was too busy to eat.

Liuani and Surot knew that it would be less than useless to try and get more information from Rysal for now. Whatever was happening, they would hear about it when Rysal finally dragged herself out of her lab.

They spent the rest of the meal talking about his new position. Surot was expecting to be spending a lot of time learning the new procedures, and getting to know a lot of new faces. This position was more of an administrator position than his last one. He would have control over incoming and outgoing teams, maintenance personnel, emergency service technicians, and some security technicians.

It certainly looked like he would be a lot more involved in the missions themselves. He was quick to point out that he would not be in on any planning stages, but apparently it is common, for whoever is in his position, to be involved with the logistics of the missions.

One of the things that he had been surprised about, as it did not come up much before this position, was how many reconnaissance missions are running at any time. He was surprised to learn that there are multiple types of ships that could be sent on the missions, depending on the type of race that was being monitored. It would also matter depending on the level of technology that they had achieved.

It had come as a bit of a surprise to learn how anxious everyone was regarding the ’Human’. The previous event had been seen as a serious failure at many levels and had resulted in more than a few studies on what had gone wrong. Part of his training for the position had been a review of the case and the results of the studies. What was most strange was that they had never been able to understand what had allowed the ’Human’ to achieve consciousness. All the logs indicated that every procedure had been followed properly, but once the ’Human’ had been conscious, everything had just gone out of control too fast for anyone to react.

Liuani made sure to let him know that she would be looking forward to hearing about his first mission. To be fair, she was very interested in what all went on in preparing for these missions. She had no real interest in ever being part of one, but these missions are what bring back all the information that she works with and getting the chance to learn about them from this side was fascinating.

Liuani was a bit surprised to see a message from Rysal waiting on her system when she got back to her office. She figured that Rysal must have had a reason for not just contacting her com. The message just asked her to come by her lab when Liuani was finished for the day.

It took a little longer, but Liuani was able to finish up everything that she had set aside, referenced as ’culture’. It was obvious to her that there were still a lot of issues for them to overcome, but the movement toward world culture and even world government was clear. There were still too many differences between many of the different cultures, but she could see how the increased exposure to information was affecting the development of every culture that had the access to what they called ’the internet’.

Liuani made her way to Rysal’s lab, arriving a few minutes later. Rysal was in the outer space with the two scanners. Above the bench were projections of stored scans, popping up on the bench one after the other every few seconds. Rysal was standing in front of the bench, totally focused on the images, apparently ignorant of Liuani’s presence.

“Hello Rysal. So what has been happening? You don’t need to eat midday meal anymore?” Liuani was not sure that Rysal would even hear her, but she figured it could not hurt to ask her about missing the meals.

Rysal did not react to Liuani’s question, still focused on the images. Occasionally she would pause the play, stare at the image then advance the series again. Liuani tried to be patient and give her a chance, she was very aware of how fixated Rysal could get when she was working on something. But she was finished for the day and was looking forward to getting home.

The final match was on for the title tonight and she wanted to see if she had predicted the correct winner. She also wanted to watch the show live, she was always interested in improving her performance and watching the top four teams play off against each other would certainly give her a lot to see.

Liuani walked up to Rysal and touched her on the shoulder to get her attention.

“What?! Oh Liuani, I did not see you there. This does not make sense. I talked with Versen, he was one of the designers for the filter. He says the filter could not be making the difference. It would not affect the display of the scan this way. I don’t understand what is causing the interference.”

Liuani was very confused now, she had no idea what Rysal was talking about.

“Rysal! I don’t know what you are referring to. Does this have to do with why you have been skipping midday meals with Surot and I?”

“Meals? No, I am too busy to eat right now, thanks for the offer.”

Liuani wanted to both laugh and strangle her friend at this point.

“I am not asking you to join me for food. You wanted me to come see you. Why am I here?”

Rysal turned now to look at Liuani. She started to say something then suddenly stopped. Liuani watched her stare into space for a second, then suddenly she was focusing on her again.

“Oh, the time totally got away from me. I could really use your opinion on something.” She did not wait for Liuani to respond, before she stepped up to the bench again and made some gestures over the surface.

All the images disappeared except for one. Rysal made the image expand until the Sel subject the scan had been done on was life sized, the Wysallean field at a full 1m radius in size. Rysal looked at it for a few seconds before speaking to Liuani again. She did not turn around.

“I would like you to look at the Wysallean field here and tell me if anything catches your attention.”

Liuani wasn’t sure what she was supposed to see, so she just moved up to the bench, standing beside Rysal. She looked at the image above the bench, examining the field for anything...different. She focused on each section of the image, looking for anything that looked odd. After a minute she had scrutinized the whole image and could not see anything different.

Liuani looked at Rysal, who was watching her examination of the image the whole time. She just looked back at the image for a second after meeting Rysal’s eyes, “I don’t see anything. What am supposed to be seeing?”

“I want you to step back, about a meter will do. Then don’t try to focus on any specific part of the image. Just let it fill your vision and relax your focus.”

Liuani waited for Rysal to continue, but that was all she was getting apparently. She stepped back a couple steps and tried again. This time she just let her eyes rest on the middle of the image and tried to let her eyes relax.

She realized that she was focusing more on her eyes than the image and tried to just relax, just letting her mind drift, while looking in the direction of the image. She did not know how long she had been just looking at the image but suddenly she found herself flicking her eyes to different parts of the image. But when she focused her eyes there, there was nothing to see.

She relaxed again and let the image fill her vision, trying to be calm and at peace. This time she noticed sooner and was able to stop her eyes from focusing after the first time. She did not know what she was seeing but she could tell there was something there. She had the impression of a colour...purple..no red..purplish red? It was more of a barely noticeable effect. It just seemed that this tiny splash of colour would almost appear in the image, just a tiny flash then gone.

She looked over at Rysal with a questioning glance. “What is that? I have never heard of anything like that?”

“That is because no one has ever seen anything like that before. I can tell you definitively that, that effect is not reported in ANY commentary on ANY Wysallean field scan.”

Rysal stopped speaking, Liuani was not sure if she was finished or just not sure what to say next. Liuani could not imagine what to ask her, this was not something that she had any specific knowledge on and did not really understand why Rysal wanted her to see this.

“You see, this is the first scan that I ran after I had modified the scanners to the wider spectrum. It took the system over nine hours to process the data for this image. When it was first finished, I examined it to see what differences I could expect. The designer that I have been talking with had said that the increased spectrum should not impact the viewable results. So much for that assurance. I contacted Versen to let him know about this effect. He could not believe it.”

“So what do you think? Is this an indication of corruption in the scan image? Or is it possible that you have discovered something about the field that no one else had even considered?” Liuani still could not tell how Rysal was actually reacting.

“I have not had the chance to run another through it to compare, aside from the Mlassyn earlier. But I need to get another scan of a Sel to use for my comparison. That is one of the reasons that I wanted to ask you to come down. I would like to use the modified scanners on you. Your existing scan will provide a baseline for comparison.”

Liuani had no concerns about getting another scan done. “That is fine with me. Did you want to do it right now?”

“Yes, definitely. The Mlassyn’s results are almost finished and if I can get one from you, it will be processed by early tomorrow.”

Liuani waited for Rysal to set up one of the scanners and when she indicated, Liuani stepped onto the scanning platform.

“The scan will take a little longer than the last time you had one. So don’t be surprised. It will do several scans, no more than five minutes and it will be finished.”

Liuani remembered the first scan she’d had. There had been no discomfort, it had taken just under 20 seconds for the scanner to finish. She had been a little disappointed at the experience. The discovery had been covered in the media for some time and when it happened to her, there was no...experience to remember. She had not known it had started until the technician had told her she could step off the scanner disk.

This time it was a little different. Liuani knew immediately when the scan started, there was a tingle in her jaw, not uncomfortable, more like she was listening to loud music. The feeling lasted for about 10 seconds then quickly faded. This was followed immediately by a brief flicker, like something just happened in the edge of her vision, too fast for her to identify it.

“Rysal, is it...”

“Try not to move. It won’t hurt you, but according to Versen, the more the subject moves, the more data that the system will have to filter out for the final analysis.”

Liuani decided that as she did not feel any real discomfort, she would wait and see what happened. At one point she felt a slight vibration in every joint, but again it was not painful, just...odd. Rysal was monitoring the scan from the bench across the room and did not seem to be finding anything unusual so far. Liuani was grateful when the scan was over, it was definitely one of the more interesting experiences she had ever had.

“So that will be ready when?”

“The new scans take just over 9 hours, so we will have something to use by mid morning.”

“That reminds me, did you get access to the ’Human’ subject?”

“Yes, I have it scheduled for later tomorrow. Though that might be delayed depending on what the results of your comparative scan tell me. Don’t be surprised if I don’t make it to midday meal tomorrow.”

“You do know that the ’Human’ subject is a male, not a neuter, right?” Liuani felt compelled to bring this to Rysal’s attention. It did not matter in the larger scale, but it seemed that he should be treated with some respect, seeing as how he had been forcibly removed from his homeworld and brought here to be examined. All things working out, he would be returned with no knowledge of ever being here, but it did not feel right to refer to him like he was an object.

“What? Okay, I don’t see why that matters, but if you say the subject is a male, then he is.” Rysal seemed more focused on whatever was requiring her attention at the bench.

Liuani bid good night to Rysal and headed home, she had a game to watch.

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