He’d done a cursory search on humans with voicelocks to determine if it was common practice on any of their colonies, but all he turned up was an IA brief.Fifty captives released from an unnamed facility. Fifteen males. Thirty-five females. Twenty minors and thirty adults. All of the postpubescent captives were voicelocked.The full brief was obviously encoded, and he wasn’t an idiot to go poking around in classified IA documents. Even though they would be easy enough to hack, he wasn’t in a position to get himself into trouble with the IA.
For now, Cassie’s origins were mostly a mystery, but as soon as he could get the voicelock disabled, she would be able totell him whatever she wanted. Or nothing. He shouldn’t expect anything from her. She was already giving him more than necessary by letting him access her tech.
Örim considered what he should do for the rest of the day. His lessons were already planned. The IA academic curriculum was simple enough, even an uneducated dullard could teach it, and he suspected he wouldn’t hear back from his mysterious darkwave contact for quite some time. He pulled out a nutritional supplement and added it to his soaking pool. His crystalline structure required weekly replenishment, but he didn’t eat like a biological organism. This was fine. He did his job and kept to himself. The need for relationships and communication was a strictly biological impulse.
Teösians had long conquered their base instincts. Seedlings were raised in pods by nurturers after their genetic contributors brought them to life. Romantic relationships were a waste of time. There was no purpose. On Teös, the highest calling was to dedicate your life to serving the glory of the Empire. Örim had tried to do just that as a rising star bioengineer. And now his lab was gone, his collaborators were gone, and he could only perform minor, meaningless experiments with his limited resources.
No doubt his former colleagues were laughing at him or using him as a cautionary tale. They’d regret it after he returned, but for now, he would bide his time and do what he did best. He was going to solve the puzzle of Cassie’s voicelock, and once he did, they would beg him to return.
Örim tried to return to his usual daydream of striding back into the research institute with his head held high to the hushed whispers of his colleagues, but it lacked its usual bright flavor. He couldn’t think about it without thinking about Cassie, and a human female was not something that had ever factored into his calculations before.
The brighter of the suns had gone down. He supposed he could leave the house. He needed to pick up the restock of his reseeding solution he’d ordered in from Brasnia Prime anyway.
Örim got on his levibike and rode into the center of town, parking beside the other bikes. He wasn’t looking forward to the awkward socialization that would undoubtedly come from being in town when all the adults were finished with their workdays, but collecting the reseeding solution was a necessary evil of living on a planet like Cassiaq-IV. There were no natural mineral pools with frequent energy charge from lightning storms like on Teös, so he’d have to accept the artificial substitute.
He adjusted his eyestones against the dust as he made his way over to the general store. The giradey proprietor trilled at him in greeting as he entered. “I have your package in stock.”
“Oh, thank you.” Örim went up to the counter and waited as the proprietor rifled through a box of packages before finding the one addressed to Örim.
“Do you need anything else?” The giradey asked.
“No, this is sufficient. Let me pay the delivery fees.” Örim extended his wrist to transfer credits into the interface.
“Well, you have a good evening then.” The giradey turned his attention to another customer, and Örim was grateful to grab his package and leave. If he only had one social interaction to navigate, he would consider it a successful visit to town. He was halfway to the levibike charging ports when he noticed a group of younglings clustered around someone, writing something in the dirt with a broken off antenna from some device.
“This is my name,” one of the urtazi younglings scrawled out ‘Grumm’ in the dirt and then handed the antenna to Cassie, who he could finally see was in the middle of the huddle.
“She can’t say it, you left hopper. Eggmother Kravv says her voice is broken.”
Örim stared transfixed as Cassie smiled softly. “I am so sorry! Let me try again.” She reached for the antenna and sketched a lopsided little urtazi face next to Grumm’s name.
“Ooh! Me next. Draw me next!” The youngest kyrot female peeped up from the crowd.
“She does well with younglings, but I don’t know if she enjoys it.”
Örim nearly dropped his package as S’samph came up beside him. “I should be on my way. I was just surprised to see my students together after school hours."
"Why are you surprised to see the younglings together? Unless you mean you are surprised to see Cassie among them.” The latil’e asked with such precise bluntness it caught Örim off guard.
“She is very patient with them.”
“She is. Eleri says I should keep secrets about Cassie, but I see no reason to hide her past. Cassie was responsible for a group of younglings at the Aviary. She has much experience in this area.”
“Cassie has offspring?” Örim asked as he watched Cassie trace the outline of a kyrot as one of the other younglings clung to her back.
“No. Cassie was responsible for helping train younglings to care for iridescence addicts.” S’samph spat the last phrase. “I see no purpose in protecting secrets like this.”
“Oh. Oh, I see.” Örim had not seen. He had not known. He should have guessed it was something horrible, but he’d been so focused on examining her voicelock that he hadn’t fully considered the implications beyond a passing thought.
“But you did not hear this from me. I just think it’s important for you to know if you’re tampering with her voice device. She is fragile.”
“I am careful with all of my research endeavors. Cassie will be no different. I’m knowledgeable of the intricacies surrounding such a delicate biological framework.”
Finally, Cassie glanced up from the gaggle of younglings around her and caught them staring. Although Örim couldn’t process the exact color, her face darkened several shades like it had the first day in his classroom. She said something to the younglings, extracted herself, and rushed past everyone, hurtling toward the clinic.
“Be very careful with this research endeavor. And remember. Cassie is a person. She is not an experiment.” S’samph’s frill lifted in warning before he stalked off in the same direction Cassie had fled.
Örim stood in the center of town as the younglings dispersed. He suspected he’d made a social error. S’samph’s revelation about Cassie’s circumstances didn’t change his plans, only modified the parameters. A traumatized research subject would need to be handled with more care. Örim rubbed his wrist nodes. Perhaps it would be prudent to learn more about the Aviary. Surely there was information on the darkwaves. If he better understood the nature of her trauma, he could be more precise in his approach to examining her device.
