update from sparkleup
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Madison Scott-Clary
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<h1 id="codrin-balancastor-2325">Codrin Bălan#Castor — 2325</h1>
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<p>Codrin Bălan was more nervous about this interview than ey’d ever been about one before. It’s not that ey hadn’t been anxious about talking with True Name previously — ey certainly had, given the warning that Dear had left em with — but in the intervening weeks, ey had had eir conversations with with No Jonas and read the news from both Codrin#Pollux and Ioan about the wealth of knowledge that the Bălan clade had gathered.</p>
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<p>Codrin Bălan was more nervous about this interview than ey’d ever been about one before. It’s not that ey hadn’t been anxious about talking with True Name previously — ey certainly had, given the warning that Dear had left em with — but in the intervening weeks, ey had had eir conversations with No Jonas and read the news from both Codrin#Pollux and Ioan about the wealth of knowledge that the Bălan clade had gathered.</p>
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<p>Dear gave no warning this time. It simply stood in the door of Codrin’s office, looking some mixture between sad and frightened, and bowed its head when ey gave it a goodbye kiss atop the snout. Ey left eir #Tracker instance in eir office to sit and not think of anything while ey painted terribly, the better to reduce merge conflicts down the line, and then sent a fork back to the sim where first ey had met True Name.</p>
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<p>She was not smiling this time. She didn’t look serious, just confident, competent, almost amused, but she was not smiling.</p>
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<p>“Are you ready for our interview, Mx. Codrin Bălan?”</p>
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<p>Ey let out a primal scream, a noise ey did not know that ey could even make, and then quit, letting the Codrin who still sat painting after so short an interview deal with eir memories. Ey was done.</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2021-10-22</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2021-11-17</p>
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<p>“The L<sub>5</sub> System? Or those on the LVs?”</p>
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<p>“Space is unfathomably big, Mx Bălan. Stupendously big. There is absolutely no way that aliens, as you put it, would care about Earth or the solar system. There’s no reason to come here. There’s no reason for them to even bother with something so pitiful as us.” The grin was edging into a smirk, now, and Ioan couldn’t tell quite what it meant. Jonas continued, “No, the LV Systems. There is the broadcast to get extraterrestrial intelligences interested in the LVs, yes, but that’s not all. There’s a very precise set of instructions for how the System works, how the Ansible works, and an Ansible receiver. The same one used for uploading to the LVs.”</p>
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<p>Ioan blinked and sat up straighter. “I don’t remember hearing anything about that.”</p>
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<p>“We clamped down on the knowledge as best we could as soon as we realized we wouldn’t be able to rule it out.” Jonas waved his hand. “Not important, though, because the last part of that package is a complete description of a human neural system and a basic description of our physiology. A complete map of our DNA, should they even want to build a human entire.”</p>
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<p>“We clamped down on the knowledge as best we could as soon as we realized we wouldn’t be able to rule it out.” Jonas waved his hand. “Not important, though, because the last part of that package is a complete description of a human neural system and a basic description of our physiology. A complete map of our DNA, should they even want to build an entire human.”</p>
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<p>“Whose DNA?”</p>
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<p>“Why, our very own Douglas Hadje! Who else? Blame True Name for that one.” He laughed bitterly. “But that’s all that they could ever want to build a Douglas Hadje in simulation and send it through the Ansible to the attached System. It’d wind up in a dead zone, a locked-down sim, we made sure of that, but it’d be able to communicate, and enough people on that System know enough about the System that it might figure out how to break free of that restriction.”</p>
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<p>“That sounds rather exciting though,” Ioan said. “Why were you so against it?”</p>
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<p>“How much have we talked about risk tonight, Ioan?”</p>
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<p>“You’re saying that it presents too great a risk to the continuity of the LV System?”</p>
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<p>“Ioan, you are very smart, but I need you to keep up if you’re going to come away with interesting answers. Think through list of instructions that I mentioned.”</p>
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<p>“Ioan, you are very smart, but I need you to keep up if you’re going to come away with interesting answers. Think through the list of instructions that I mentioned.”</p>
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<p>Ey tilted eir head, then frowned. “There’s an Ansible on there, you said, right? They could theoretically upload that same manufactured construct to this System, right?”</p>
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<p>Jonas nodded. “There we go. There’s nothing to stop them from doing so, after all. It’s easy enough for them to figure out that these are probes, and that probes must be coming from somewhere. There’s no reason, then, for them not to find that somewhere and blast out constructs in our direction. We’re taking steps now to match those new Hadjes to dump them in a similar locked-down sim. We’ll ask our questions, then terminate them.”</p>
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<p>“What about <em>the</em> Douglas Hadje?”</p>
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<p>The driver nodded appreciatively, saying, “It looks good on you. Your shirt underneath may ride up, but feel free to slip off to a restroom when we arrive and you’ll be able to take it off and check it at the coatroom.”</p>
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<p>Yared nodded, smiled as best he could, and bowed to the driver. It was the first time he’d seen the man’s eyes, and he was pleased to note that they looked as though they were always a second away from crinkling in a smile.</p>
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<p>In the back of the car, Demma greeted him with a warm smile of his own, while a rather severe looking woman leaned forward to shake his hand.</p>
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<p>“Yared, I’d like to introduce you to Councilor Aida Tamrat,” Demma said, gesturing. “Aida, this is Yered Zerezghi, the author of the secession amendment.”</p>
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<p>“Yared, I’d like to introduce you to Councilor Aida Tamrat,” Demma said, gesturing. “Aida, this is Yared Zerezghi, the author of the secession amendment.”</p>
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<p>“A pleasure, of course,” she said. “Thank you for all of your hard work.”</p>
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<p>Overwhelmed, he simply bowed as best he could from his cushy seat in the back of the car.</p>
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<p>From there, he said little, having little enough chance to say so. Demma and Tamrat continued their conversation from before, which seemed, on the surface, to be about the party they’d just come from — who was with whom, who wore what, what drinks had been most common — yet seemed to carry serious undertones of deep study, as though all of this information taken as a whole showed some gestalt of the political momenta this way and that. The driver, of course, remained silent, so all Yared could do was sit, smile, and nod when addressed.</p>
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<p>“Mr Zerezghi, it was a pleasure sharing coffee with you,” he said, and then they were gone, black car disappearing into gold-lit night.</p>
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</article>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2021-10-22</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2021-11-17</p>
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