Move 2.4 Recap

The team conducts its first interview with Jedao.

Flashback: Fluffy and Ione

Fluffy has been building a nest in a corner of the galley and decorating it with shiny objects. Before leaving on the mission to retrieve Jedao, Ione gave Fluffy a piece of crystal prism jewelry. Fluffy responded by nuzzling Ione and giving the jewelry a place of honor above her nest's entrance.

Securing Jedao

After searching Jedao, the team finds a tablet, a quaint communicator incorporated into an old-fashioned wristwatch, a tactical knife, and a multitool. Seyli takes the knife and the multitool.

Sasha tells the team, "Nice work, everyone." She instructs Ione and Seyli to take Jedao to a room she has prepared for him in one of the storage areas. She asks Alaric to explain to the Cantata that they don't know whether Jedao is a friend or not yet: "Maybe ask if they'd be willing to keep an eye on our new acquaintance?" She instructs Sulen, "You and Virmad should interview Jedao. Take Gerae, if you want him. It's your call whether to start now, or wait till the drug wears off." Her instructions for Reshad are, "Wait half an hour, and then I want you to contact Flute's people. Explain you were drugged, and demand to know what is going on." Reshad confirms, "I'm on it. I'll toss some blame around."

Alaric warbles to Cantata, using a quantum superposition metaphor to communicate that Jedao might be friendly or unfriendly, and determining the difference will require observation. Cantata indicates its understanding with enthusiastic song.

Ione and Seyli take Jedao to the room waiting for him. On the team's channel, Seyli says that they want to restrain Jedao: "I doubt it would slow someone like him down for long." For both Jedao and the team to hear, Ione says, "Water. We need to make sure our ... guest drinks." Reshad echoes, "Water," and fetches some for Jedao. She instructs him to drink, smiling at Ione. Jedao smiles, nods, and drinks. Sasha says, "Sulen, please instruct Seyli as to the level of restraint you would like to impose on our guest." Over the team channel, Reshad protests, "Do you think restraint will help? If we want him cooperative, we shouldn't act like his enemies." Sasha warns, "This is Sulen's judgment call." Reshad tells the group, "Be right back." She heads for Sasha's office. Ione smiles at Reshad and tells Jedao, "Let us know if you're still thirsty." She hopes this will not act as a suggestion to make repeated requests for water.

Over the team's channel, Sulen says, "He needs to be restrained, but not with prejudice. If he needs to drink, he can have one hand free, if his legs are bound." For Ione's benefit, they add, "Please remember he's trained as an assassin." Still on the team channel, Seyli says, "Someone bring me a set of spider restraints, I don't want to leave the room." Gerae stops by with a set printed on the matter printer, and offers them with a nervous smile. Seyli thanks Gerae and motions for Ione to step back. They drop Jedao's multitool on the floor and then, while pretending to retrieve it, secure Jedao's ankles; they kick the tool into a corner. Jedao says, "You have those too? Mine were a gift from my mom. She said it was shameful that the Kel don't issue them. Of course, my mom has a lot of Opinions about the Kel. Did you get yours as a gift?" He acquiesces to the restraints, remarking, "If I'd known it was that kind of dance-and-party night, I would have dressed a little differently."

Sasha's office: Reshad and Sasha; messages involving Cantata and Sulen

Reshad knocks on Sasha's door. Sasha gestures, and the door slides open. Her expression guarded, Reshad asks, "May I have a moment of your time?" Sasha is monitoring multiple datastreams and listening to the station security feed. She says, "Speak." Reshad says, "Congratulations on the successful mission." She immediately moves to the true purpose for her visit: "I want to be involved when he's coming around. Flute first, of course." Sasha replies, "This moth is still attached to a station where somebody has made a credible threat to murder hundreds of civilians. That contingency plan might still be in force. Until we are clear, and the threat I hope averted, I am not counting this a success." She gestures again, maintaining her attack on the station's cameras, then says, "If you can't read an environmental monitor, I don't need you in here. Take it up with Sulen." Reshad nods. She looks at Sasha's screens and the amount of data she is personally monitoring, says, "Very well," and leaves. Sasha is confused by Reshad's smooth acquiescence, and makes a note to ask Sulen what Reshad really wanted before returning to monitoring the station.

Sasha checks the activity of the other rebellion hackers; she finds that Spider is trying to locate Jedao using station records and camera feeds, while Firecracker is watching the station's damage control team. Sasha eases off her attack on the station's cameras. She erases traces of her presence as she goes. She confirms that station security has confiscated the cleaning robot containing more crowd-control drugs and code faking a connection to a heretical heptarchate group. She finds that a nutrient supply freighter and a pleasure yacht have already left the station, for apparently innocuous reasons, but the station is preventing other departures. About sixty ships have asked to leave, including the Lanterners' moth, but not the Kel moths. Sasha adds the Cantata to the list, under its current name, Symphony of Bees.

Meanwhile, Reshad asks Sulen to alert her when they are available, using the team's channel. She hums part of a song she had taught to a mothling at the introduction party; the Cantata sings the next bar, then pauses, listening. Sasha overhears the Cantata and is a little bit jealous. She sends Reshad and Sulen a message, alerting them, "I have added us to the queue for station departure. There are approximately 60 ships ahead of us. Station is currently refusing to grant such requests." Reshad acknowledges the message, asking, "Please advise on air venting - action needed?" Sasha responds, "Green Team is hunting for our guest. No evidence contingency plan activated; monitoring ongoing. No action needed." Meanwhile, Reshad hums the rest of the verse for the Cantata. The Cantata warbles encouragement, and the deck vibrates. Reshad pats a bulkhead, saying, "Thanks," followed by a hummed two-tone chime.

Jedao wakes up

Ione, who has been watching unobtrusively, suppresses a laugh at Jedao's comment on the "dance-and-party night" and asks, "So you're feeling all right, general?" Jedao answers, "Could do with a spot of whiskey. Otherwise, I'll take a glass of water, thank you." Reshad, who is just returning to the room, quickly fetches a glass of water for him, then tucks herself against the wall next to Ione. Seeming more alert, Jedao asks Reshad with narrowed eyes, "I'm sorry, where have we met before?" Reshad says, "We've only just met. I do apologize for the restraints." Jedao responds softly but intensely, "Excuse me. Two questions. One: who do you represent? Two: Where are my Kel?" Seyli moves closer to Reshad, tense. Jedao asks them, "So tell me, are you a deserter, impersonator, or traitor? Because you're no legitimate hawk." Seyli is bitter and frustrated but remains silent; they shift into a Kel waiting stance. Reshad tells Jedao, "Your Kel are fine. There was a plot to assassinate you. We stopped it. Nobody was injured, and certainly no casualties." On the team channel, Reshad says that Jedao is "coming around": "Rahal, we need you."

Rahal conference: Sulen and Virmad; messages with Reshad and Sasha

After returning to the Cantata, Sulen gestures Virmad into a room for a quick conference. They note that Virmad knows Gerae better, and for that matter, "You know Jedao better than I do, since I've only had a week to read up on him. Would bringing in Gerae for additional scrying power during our assessment of Jedao just give Jedao another potential target to manipulate?" Virmad's first reaction is, "Bluntly, yes." His second thought is, "Maybe his foxish tendencies would be useful to us here — I don't know about you but I find Shuos frustrating at the best of times." He debates whether to confess uncertainty to Sulen, but decides to admit he would appreciate Gerae's support: "I don't know if you watched the archival material from after Hellspin. Profoundly unsettling — and yet, you can see why he inspired such loyalty. The point being, I'm a little concerned about my own ability to conduct this assessment, and to that end I think it would help if Gerae were present. I trust that between the three of us we can keep things professional and on track. After all, there’s a reason Rahal usually operate in hepts. Strength in numbers, solidarity, and all that." Clasping Virmad's shoulder, Sulen says, "Strong reasoning. I agree. We all have our weaknesses, but together--we'll handle it." They feel some uncertainty, since they are no longer together with the Rahal as a whole, but note they will want to speak with Jedao soon after he recovers.

Virmad thanks Sulen and agrees: "The longer we give him to think about his situation, the more dangerous and unpredictable he will become. What are we actually going to ask him, though?" Sulen summarizes, "We need to know if his future actions are motivated by a desire for destruction or by an ideological opposition to the Heptarchate, and if his ideals might match with ours." They advise, "We need him to believe we are who we say we are, so we should be straightforward." They add that, "to determine whether he's safe to work with," the Rahal "could simply say that he is a failed traitor in the future and we are considering recruiting him. Then we ask him why he would rebel. He'll tell us the answer he thinks we want to hear, and hopefully we'll be able to see if he's telling the truth. His variable signifier worries me, but we'll just have to deal with that." They receive Reshad's request for assistance, and tell her, "On our way." They ask Virmad to fetch Gerae.

Sulen asks Sasha, "Anything you need or developments I should be aware of before I go in?" Sasha tells them, "The Lanterners have requested permission to leave station, along with us and a whole list of other ships. I'll alert you when and if we move."

Sasha's office and the cockpit: Alaric and Sasha; messages with Cantata and the team

Alaric wanders into Sasha's office. "Lots of people deciding that this isn't the conference for them, huh? Here's an engineering question: what actually holds on onto the station? Magnetic mooring beams, physical clamps, umbilical lines?" Sasha answers, "Largely magnetic, aside from the airlock seals. The biggest problem isn't physically breaking away. It's making sure nobody is interested enough to come after us, especially not any stray Kel. That's easier if lots of other ships are moving simultaneously."

Sasha decides that, since Firecracker and Spider are looking for information about Jedao rather than carrying out the contingency plan of murdering people on the station, she can relax her vigilance slightly. She asks Alaric to take over the analysis of the station's atmosphere readings: "I set the tolerances very narrow, which means assessing a fuck of a lot of false positives. Can you offload some of that assessment to the grid, and I'll look a bit harder at the station's traffic restrictions?" Alaric agrees, and starts to work. He suggests, "If you're faking departure authorizations, you might change the assigned flight paths too. It'll make any odd behavior on our part less noticeable, especially if someone buzzes our possible pursuers and distracts them." Sasha says, laughing, "I don't know how the flight paths are computed, but I'll see what I can access."

Sasha attacks the traffic-control grid. She is able to hack both human and grid-controlled functions; to her horror, she even find access to the low-level code that determines flight paths. She forges a message from the station chief saying, "The delay of outgoing ships is no longer necessary," diverts any reply messages, and rearranges the departure queue to put the Cantata fourth in line. She tells Alaric, "The station should be about to clear us for departure. Can you get ready to take us out of here? I'll take the atmosphere monitoring back."

Alaric acknowledges, "By your command." He prepares for departure, and suggests to the Cantata that once they are outside the range of station and Kel sensors, it might enjoy a bit of sprinting. He asks Sasha, "Do you have a destination in mind, or will 'anywhere but here' suffice for now? I'm thinking not straight to the rift, in case we're followed. We can probably find somewhere to hide if we look." The Cantata sings to Alaric about its joy in sprinting and desire to share flight with the mothlings. Sasha tells him, "The least suspicious thing we can do right now is head back toward the Lanterner system we came from. Set a course for Autumn Pyre, and we'll discuss whether and when to veer elsewhere once Reshad speaks with Flute's people." She prepares to cut off data streams that would be too obvious once the Cantata leaves dock. The queue empties quickly, and the station clears the "Symphony of Bees" for departure. She then informs the team channel, "I have forged a departure clearance, and we are drawing back from the station."

Galley: Fluffy and Sasha

Sasha puts on a pair of earbuds, so she can listen to the conversation with Jedao and track alerts about the station's status. She heads to the galley, where she notices Fluffy's nest. She whistles softly; Fluffy responds with a chirruped greeting. Sasha coaxes Fluffy out of the nest by offering her jam, and notices that there are eggs still within, along with a cache of candies. She prints a tiny camera on the end of a lighted, flexible stick, and takes pictures of the eggs, while distracting Fluffy with candied almonds. She finds that the shells are only slightly soft, so the eggs are likely to hatch within the next couple of weeks. Sasha prepares a tray of high-calcium snacks for Fluffy, hoping she will save some of them for newborn pseudo-dragons, and heads into the common room. Fluffy samples the treats; she appreciates fruit, seeds, and dried fish, but is skeptical of tofu strips.

Since matters on the station seem relatively quiet and the other team members are handling the conversation with Jedao, Sasha begins hacking Jedao's tablet. She finds that there are two operating systems, one running a standard Shuos toolkit and the other running Kel software. She deduces that the Shuos toolkit is likely Jedao's, based on the times that this operating system has been accessed. On the Kel side, she finds messages about weapons systems from an anonymous engineer, and research on the calendars and personal freedoms permitted by the heptarchate's enemies. Examining the messages with the engineer more closely, she notices that the specs seem similar to what she knows about threshold winnowers, and that Jedao has drafted but not sent several messages complaining that the effects are inhumane.

Interviewing Jedao

Sasha messages Sulen, "u can give our guest the nice whiskey if u think it will help," hoping they will understand that she promises to react less intensely than she did to Mikodez, and to respect their judgment.

Meanwhile, Jedao tells Reshad, "Talk is cheap. I remember nothing of this 'assassination attempt'." Projecting confidence, Reshad says, "Nor will you. Our medic can tell you more as soon as it's permitted." Raising his eyebrows, Jedao says, "'It's permitted,' passive voice--that doesn't tell me by whom. Who's in charge here?" Sulen messages Virmad to fetch Gerae quickly, then enters the room where Jedao is held. They are wearing plain, dark clothing. They answer, "The captain of this ship. She is busy right now. I am second in command, and I can answer your questions."

Jedao says, "All right, I'll play. On what authority are you detaining a Kel officer?" At this point, Virmad and Gerae enter the room. They are both wearing Rahal uniforms; Virmad inclines his head and greets Sulen as "Inquisitor." Jedao's signifier flickers to Immolation Fox. He apologizes for his inability to bow and asks, "May I ask what I have been charged with?" Sulen is frustrated by the miscommunication about uniforms, but says, "I no longer hold that rank. You have not been charged with anything. Have you heard anything recently about rifts in the fabric of space time, General?" Jedao points out, sarcastically, that the security conference treated the topic of rifts at some length: "Which, considering that you've gone to some pains to separate me from my soldiers, I assume you're already aware of." He adds, "Unbind me as an earnest of your good faith and we can talk. Otherwise, I'm afraid there's nothing to discuss."

In the Shuos sign language, Reshad signals, "Ally." Aloud she expresses her support for freeing Jedao from his restraints. Jedao signs, "Heptarch's orders?" Reshad signs in reply, "Hexarch's." Disturbed, Jedao signs, "Time?"

Sulen tells Jedao that they are naturally reluctant to release him: "You could kill me easily, and I am about to confess to being a- a heretic to someone who kills heretics for a living. It's true that we saved your life. We're here from the future. Perhaps you can draw your own conclusions." Aloud, Reshad says, "Last I looked before I came here, the year was 1249. Though... I can't speak for everyone." Tilting his head at Sulen, Jedao says, "I don't see why a heretic would confess their heresy to a killer of heretics. What's the advantage to you? Still, an impasse. I may be a soldier, but I don't kill without cause. If you free me, I swear on my dueling sword that I will not attack you unless attacked first." Looking sharply at Reshad, he adds, "I would hear more of your time. After you release me." Reshad nods, agreeing to do so later. Sulen says, "Heretics confess for many reasons, General. In my case, I'm hoping to find an ally. You're known to future history as a traitor to the heptarchate. Something which led us to save your life, but which means I cannot accept your word as bond." They regret their inability to trust Jedao's word, but fear his potential for violence.

Jedao laughs, describing Sulen's story as "an inspired fabulation"; meanwhile, his signifier shows Crowned With Eyes, indicating a bluff. He continues, "Since you're from the future, humor me with the answer to one question before you bring in the jugglers, or whatever the hell it is you have planned for tonight. What are the factions in your future? Because I assume they still exist." Reshad lists, "Six factions: Kel, Rahal, Vidona, Nirai, Shuos, Andan." Distressed, Jedao asks, "The Liozh are gone? Not the Vidona?" "Does it matter, if we are only confabulating?" Sulen responds.

Jedao answers, "Touché. I think you're telling the truth, incredible as it sounds. Which means that I failed. I was planning to turn coat, yes. But not this year. Not until I had no other choice." Holding out a hand, palm-up, he says, "If you're recording this, congratulations. You can blackmail me however you please." Reshad takes a step toward Jedao, her posture shifting to openness. "If you were trying to send the Vidona down...I'm sorry. I'm not interested in blackmail, but in truth... preventing the Hexarchs from rising, in the first place." Completely focused on Reshad, Jedao asks, "To destroy the whole rotted system before it begins--this is your mission? Is there a way?" Sulen tells him, "There might be. The odds of success are uncertain, but probably not high. From what I know of you, though, long odds aren't something that holds you back. If you're interested in joining us." Virmad adds, "Our current mission is to mitigate the harm the -archate causes in a variety of timeframes, including this one, where you are at the confluence of...some particularly memorable harm. But we do have...long-term goals." He reflects that the team, and the rebellion as a whole, lacks consensus on what those goals are. Meanwhile, Seyli and Ione are watching; Seyli is alert for a possible attack from Jedao, while Ione is picking up his emotional storms.

Jedao tells Sulen, "I have a reputation for gambling, but winning games and winning a revolution are, if you'll pardon the expression, entirely two different kinds of geese. I'm not unwilling to work with your cause, but I assume you had something in mind for me other than leaving me trussed up here in perpetuity?" Nodding at Virmad, he adds, "In any case, I have a confession for you. You may consider me to be too much of a liability to use, because--because I wasn't acting alone, and my co-conspirator, besides also having blackmail material on me, is not a man to cross lightly. He will not take it kindly if I abandon the plan that I had shared with him." Ione detects a pulse of despair at this admission.

Reshad notices her own excitement at the team's success. She observes that there "must be a way" to undo the hexarchate: "No system is unbreakable." Regarding Jedao's co-conspirator, she adds, "So far as anyone knows, you've vanished without a trace. I need to go shortly to sell that idea. We really can travel the rifts. If you're not now, they may have some difficulty." Meanwhile, she signs, "Shuos?" Jedao answers, "No system is unbreakable, but as someone once reminded me, what do you build afterwards? I never had an answer to that part." He signs, "Nirai," while continuing, "I don't think the rifts are going to stop him for long, because he's an engineer with specific expertise in mothdrives, and I happen to know that he's devoting his not inconsiderable resources to controlling the rifts." Ione notices he fears this person. On the team channel, Sasha says, "Jedao's correspondence includes a conversation about something with the specs of threshold winnowers, with an unnamed engineer." Sulen asks Jedao, "Is this co-conspirator of yours willing to go to extreme lengths to damage the heptarchate?" They wonder if this person is behind Jedao's atrocities in their timeline. Watching Sulen closely, his voice dry, Jedao says, "It would be more accurate to say that he's willing to go to extreme lengths to get his own way. I killed him once and it didn't take. I have no leverage on him, and I'm not aware of any way to get rid of him for keeps." He shrugs. "Shall I lay my cards on the table? I didn't think the heptarchate could be destroyed in one lifetime. This was before the rifts, mind. He--made an offer."

Reshad says, "I need to spend more time working on what comes after. Burning down the High Calendar only leaves us open to someone else's system. But I don't see why it has to run on blood." Jedao answers, "By all means, if you have a better system in mind, I'm all ears." Reshad says, "It's going to be a balance, whatever it is. But please - let's discuss it when your hands are free." She looks hopefully at Sulen, then continues, "As far as immortality... You had it, in my time. You returned at least three times to accomplish various goals for the Hexarchate. There were a shelf full of dramas for every version of the stories, and some of them got pretty wild." Ione raises a finger. "Now might not be the ... best time to discuss that? The dramas and immortality, at least. Hand-freeing may be acceptable at this time, I'm not ... aware of any reason we couldn't." Jedao turns pale and laughs bitterly. "Do as you please. If I've attained immortality in your timeline, then I failed anyway. After a fashion. Considering what I would have had to do to secure it."

Sulen finds Jedao's last observation persuasive. They look at Gerae and Virmad, then, eyes completely bronze, ask Jedao, "Do you have ill intentions towards anyone on this ship?" Jedao answers, "Not unless you try to kill me. Which you could have, and haven't." Ione senses that Jedao wants to redeem himself, or to make up for some future action. Ione nods at the Rahal. Sulen tells Seyli, "Then I do not object to allowing him use of his hands. But not free roam of the ship." "I will not abuse your trust," Jedao says. He tells Seyli, "I spoke discourteously to you before. You have my apology." The restraints allow him to bow slightly. Seyli moves close to Jedao and says, very quietly, "I do not trust you. I will never trust you, even if my colleagues seem eager to do so." They release the restraints around his wrists and step back, saying more loudly, "Thank you for the apology." Sasha thanks Seyli, via the grid. Jedao rubs his gloved wrists, with exaggerated care. Reshad thanks Seyli, aloud; on the team channel, she says, "I want to know about the winnowers, when we finish here." Without looking at Reshad, Jedao signs, "My life is in your hands."

After everyone leaves Jedao's room, Seyli sends a message to Ione, Reshad, the Rahal, and Sasha: "We need to set up a guard, procedures about his access to the moth, make sure it's enforced." Sasha replies to everyone, "Debrief in the common room. Fifteen minutes."

In Remi's room: Remi, Sasha, and some mothlings, joined by Mafyyil

Meanwhile, Sasha goes looking for Remi. She finds him in his room, playing tangrams with two mothlings. She greets him and says, "May I ask you some questions about calendars?" Pleased, Remi says, "Of course. Is this a business call, or a social one?" He offers Sasha any of a selection of beautifully arranged snacks. She chooses one at random for the sake of politeness, and explains her business: she has found correspondence between Jedao and an anonymous engineer regarding weapons that sound like threshold winnowers. She offers to show Remi the messages, adding that Jedao is "worried about things like the cost of remembrances, and loss of life. It doesn't make sense for him to murder his people, a year from now, just because he can. I was wondering, is there a calendrical effect he might have expected, with the threshold winnowers? Virmad says people thought he went mad, after the battle of Candle Arc. But it seems to me, whatever he's going to do a year from now, he's already planning it."

Remi notes that he researched threshold winnowers in preparation for this mission, and would indeed like to see the messages. He says that although threshold winnowers are "unusually grotesque", "The truth is, with exotics, the type of effect is rarely what causes the calendrical effect. In the heptarchate's very early years, it's true that you could force a calendrical spike simply by doing something novel. But by the mid-300s, when I went through Nirai Academy, that was largely no longer true. I would have to do additional reading on the...variety of exotic weapons to be sure. It was a truism even in my time, though, that for a calendrical spike you needed a lot of deaths, and a lot of noteworthy deaths, at a specifically calculated time." Frowning, he observes that such calculations are complicated and prone to error: "If this Jedao is working with an engineer, that at least suggests he has access to someone who can verify his calculations. I don't know how good he is at math?" Sasha carefully extracts the messages for Remi, saying, "I don't know, either. There's no sign that he's running computations on this device, but he's being very careful about what he saves. Should I try to access his exam scores?" Remi looks at the messages and says, "I can't imagine this isn't a security breach of some kind--surely any official weapons development should be going through official channels." He agrees that checking Jedao's scores is a good idea.

Sasha discovers that Jedao's Academy entrance math scores were the lowest acceptable for entrance, and that he avoided math- or science-heavy courses. "These scores can be fucking misleading, but this certainly doesn't look like someone who's rolling his own calendrical intervention. I'd like to know who that engineer is. I don't think I can extract that information from the lattice while we're in transit, but I can instruct the Rahal to ask. Anything else I should tell them to enquire about?" Remi says to ask Jedao about a specific part of the engineer's correspondence: "I really want to know if this Jedao fully appreciates what it means, because what it means is premeditated slaughter. These engines are not designed for remote operation. There has to be someone in person to turn it on, because of the way the exotics work--the specs are very clear on this point--and those operators are not shielded from the effects. The people activating these weapons will die of it. I wonder if he was going to tell them that."

(The next part of their conversation includes naive questions about suicide and interrogation techniques; click to expand.)

"Eight bright hells," Sasha curses. "We know, historically, that he murdered his command staff. I wonder if he told them what the orders they were delivering entailed. Maybe he thought death was a fair price, for making that assignment. But if so, I wonder why he didn't kill himself." Remi asks, "Do we have evidence that he did or didn't try?" He remarks on the lack of records about Jedao's life, then says diffidently, "A psych surgery deep probe--the kind of thing you do as exploratory work before actually changing anything--might turn up suicidal impulses. At least to the extent that it's there to be turned up. Although I have to question how useful that will be against someone who presumably passed all his regular psych evaluations as a soldier?" Sasha shrugs. "All the sources I've found say he killed everyone else in the vicinity. I don't see what would have stopped him. About the surgery--is that something you could do, on this ship? And does it work antagonistically, or would he have to agree to the procedure?" She reflects that although a permanent binding is unacceptable, she does have to consider ways to assess the threat Jedao poses. Sasha's question about suicide makes Remi look sad: "That's not...how suicide usually works. He might have gone to the brink and lost the will, or changed his mind. He might have been determined to kill himself just to be persuaded otherwise when he remembered that he owed a birthday card to his cousin. And he's a Shuos--not prone to impulsive action, if we're talking of a mind in crisis." He's more concerned about Sasha's other question; he explains that a quick and antagonistic procedure is possible, using "certain drugs"; "Or slower methods can be done without drugs, but usually require methods that I would consider torture, and then there's the risk of permanent damage. I won't do it unless he agrees to it, or unless you can persuade me that there's no alternative. Killing him would frankly be kinder than the slow methods, especially if he's strong-willed." Sasha resents Remi's description of typical suicidal behavior: "Fucking stars, I am talking about a person with a gun in his hand who has just murdered all of his own people. There is no way that is impulsive or usual." After listening to part of the conversation with Jedao, she thanks Remi for his psych surgery explanation, saying, "That sounds like what I would call a binding without wire. It is not a thing I would request or permit, here." Remi seems relieved. "There are non-invasive evaluations I could give, but they amount to asking the patient questions and observing his responses, and unless he's very trusting, I doubt it would get you fast answers of the sort you seek." Sasha notes, "The Rahal and Reshad, together, seem to be getting some cooperation out of him. Maybe he'll explain what he wants."

Changing the subject, Sasha asks Remi, "Do you want a pseudo-dragon? Fluffy has laid quite a number of eggs, and there's no way Gerae can socialize them all." Remi says he "would be delighted to socialize a pseudo-dragon," though he's sure Gerae "would do his best." A mothling floats over to Sasha, bumping against her hand; the other mothling is making a picture out of tangrams that seems rather like a pseudo-dragon. Sasha explains, "In the wild, there would be a whole group of adult pseudo-dragons looking after a clutch. It's not healthy to have just Fluffy and one or two humans, no matter how well-meaning they are." She scratches the friendly mothling, and asks Remi whether the tangram design might be representational: "I suppose Alaric showed Cantata two-dimensional images, as well. It's surprising to me that they understood--their perception can't be anything like ours." Remi says, "I have this hypothesis that they 'see' in three-dimensional imaging of a kind, and that they've figured out how to do projections into two-space." He explains that the mothlings did not produce representational crayon art, adding, "I'm thinking of trying them on nontoxic clay next."

Mafyyil hears voices and joins the conversation, greeting Remi and Sasha cheerfully. She asks the mothling, "What are you doing? Ohh, playing? Is that a fern?" She moves a piece to match her impression. Sasha says, "I think it might be a pseudo-dragon! They've never met a fern." She asks Remi whether he has considered blocks. Remi greets Mafyyil, glad that she seems interested in the mothlings. The mothling itself moves a tangram, to a spot inconsistent with a fern design, and waits to see what Mafyyil will do next. Remi seems interested in the blocks idea, adding, "I promise I'll keep the mess of children's toys and manipulables confined to my room."

Looking at the mothling's changes, Mafyyil blurts, "Is that a gun? Remi, what exactly are you teaching the, uh, mothlings? Anyway, the trigger should be this way around." Sasha asks whether Mafyyil is carrying a weapon. Amused, given her current close-fitting attire, Mafyyil says, "Of course not! Where would I hide that, in my hair?" Mildly embarrassed, Remi shifts the conversation: "Someone tried to show me how to shoot a revolver once. I was terrible at it. But if we're under threat of attack on the ship, I should probably learn self-defense." Mafyyil says, "Don't worry. If anyone attacks the ship, I will shoot them first. Also, I can show you!" Seriously, Remi expresses his interest in lessons. "My hand-eye is fine, but I've seen gunshot wounds and I'm... I'm squeamish. As long as we stick to targets to start with, and not very realistic-looking simulations, I should be all right."

Sasha is concerned at the idea of Mafyyil and Remi on the range without supervision. She tells them, "I have some experience with hunting, but that's not the same." Remembering, Remi says, "Meat. A rarity when I was going up. I foraged, of course; we all did. I almost died of mushrooms I wasn't sure of, once, because there wasn't anything else to--" Sasha, who is listening to the conversation with Jedao, says, "Jedao's correspondence includes a conversation about something with the specs of threshold winnowers, with an unnamed engineer"; though the observation is meant for the team channel, Mafyyil and Remi can hear her speak. She explains to Remi, "Jedao is describing his connection to a person who works on mothdrives." She then asks, "Were there not birds and small mammals, on your planet? Or frogs?" Remi answers, "There was too much competition from the olders. And anyway, it was a refugee camp. Children were usually last in line to get the better rations, unless they had someone's protection." Shrugging, he adds, "It was a long time ago," and then changes the subject back: "I will wager that the person who works on mothdrives either has a connection to Jedao's engineer correspondent, or is the selfsame person. Although I will admit that most Nirai prefer to specialize." Sasha nods sympathetically at Remi's story and wishes she could offer him some sort of compensation. She asks, "Could Jedao's contact be some sort of administrator? A person who directs multiple programs, or makes decisions on their funding?" Remi says, "Absolutely. That's...that's actually a very good explanation. An administrator with the background to check up on the programs and how they're progressing without getting hoodwinked by the unscrupulous, but maybe not an active researcher or scientist themselves."

Sasha listens more closely to the conversation with Jedao for a moment, then tells Mafyyil and Remi, "Jedao claims that his contact is unkillable and undying. And that this man offered to extend some of the same powers to him." Confused, Mafyyil asks, "A saint? This man is a saint?" She doesn't understand why the team would detain someone favored by divine figures. Sasha decides not to drag Mafyyil into theological debate, instead answering, "He could be using an exotic technology, or he could be lying. Or he could be a mystic and a liar. He would hardly be the first one." Remi says, "It could be an exotic technology. But the calendar would be different from the one I knew in my day--not that that says much. The Rahal are always making adjustments, aren't they? And immortality would be one hell of an incentive." Sasha explains that "the amount of torture" in the heptarchate and hexarchate calendar "increases significantly over time," speculating, "I would have guessed this had to do with the moths, and maybe the binding of the Kel. But I understand that a calendar can do many things." Mafyyil doesn't understand, and is upset by the suggestion that saints employ technology. "Surely, what a mystic says becomes truth, even if it had not been before the truth was spoken," she tells Sasha. Sasha answers, "Maybe your calendar works that way, but where I come from, they are generally high as kites."

New tensions and rebellion integration

The events summarized here reveal a division between the team members who are primarily focused on Jedao, and the danger or potential of his presence, and team members whose priorities lie elsewhere. Reshad, in particular, is extremely interested in the power and opportunities that having Jedao as an ally would provide. Meanwhile, Sasha is more concerned about her existing relationships and conflicts with other rebellion members than she is about Jedao; though she is familiar with some of the later heptarchate and hexarchate media about his career, he doesn't have the same hold on her imagination as he does for some of the team members who grew up in the heptarchate or hexarchate. Sasha worries that Sulen thinks she is incompetent because her response to the news of Mikodez' Shuos connection went so far awry, and works hard to establish that she will respect Sulen's judgment as to the best way to approach Jedao. Reshad interprets Sasha's deference to Sulen's opinion as opposition to her own desire to build rapport with Jedao, when in fact Sasha is attempting to prevent her own tendency to react too forcefully when under stress from interfering with the attempt to glean information from Jedao.

More broadly, Sasha is still negotiating the transition from being one member of a team to a leadership role. Like many engineers, or like the Nirai whose signifier she bears, she takes on as many tasks as possible related to her core expertise, rather than figuring out how to delegate. Because she is focused on potential danger to the station from Flute's team, she fails to listen to Reshad's concerns. Sasha's unnecessary hostility to interruption is likely to provoke precisely the social aggression from Reshad that she has feared all along.

Sasha is more successful at working with Remi, whose technical strengths she understands how to evaluate. Remi is most interested in learning more about the mothlings, but has a broad and unusual collection of skills; as team members get to know him, they will be better able to draw on the full range of his expertise. Alaric is also rapidly developing expertise in moth behavior and psychology, and succeeds in persuading the Cantata to work toward the team's goals.

Despite the miscommunication regarding uniforms, Sulen, Virmad, and Gerae work together smoothly during the interview with Jedao. Ione's empathy and Reshad's use of Shuos sign language provide additional means of gaining information about his mental state: the team makes rapid progress in assessing Jedao and persuading him that their goals are unexpected. Virmad and Reshad share (albeit for different reasons) a certain fascination with Jedao. However, each is able to balance curiosity with broader team goals, Virmad by relying on solidarity with other Rahal, Reshad by falling back on typical Shuos skepticism.

Seyli is far less comfortable with the team's assessment and potential recruitment of Jedao. They are not yet alert to the intra-rebellion conflicts, such as the danger that Quill poses, that motivated Sasha to detain him; more importantly, they hold him responsible for the events of Hellspin, even if they have not yet happened in this timeline. Since the team relies on Seyli's combat experience, resolving this tension will pose a key challenge going forward.

Mafyyil's integration with the rebellion is even less complete. Her conversation with Remi and Sasha reveals her ignorance of basic heptarchate and hexarchate assumptions regarding fundamental physical properties. This constitutes a clear failure in the team's training regimen.