Help was on its way to restock the ship. Could be a day, could be three. It could even be three hours. He (Keib) stood up from his desk and shook himself to bring feeling back to his legs. He bent down to press a button on his intercom, the one to Aiesu's room specifically. "Aiesu, you busy? I have a line of inquiry for further support: LazCon."
It would only be a few minutes before knuckles quietly rapped on the door. The door slid open quietly. Keib wasn't behind his desk, rather he was sitting down on the couch against the wall in his uniform and coat. He gave the construct a nod of acknowledgement. His room was fairly well lit and upon his desk were folders, papers and notebooks scattered across in a pattern only he could fathom, handwriting hasty with a distinct jilt to it.
Aiesu squinted, staring at the hand-writing as her eyes moved from book to book. She tried reading the hand-writing. And then OCR. Optical character recognition. A miracle of technology that could even surrender the secrets of upside down cursive that had been through the gut of a person. Hundreds of thousands of Lazarus machines trying to disseminate the meaning of those words billions of miles away.
And all for naught. A doctor's hand-writing, Keib's especially, could make even the greatest cryptologist feel inept.
"So," she began, wondering how he accomplished this awe inspiring feat.
Keib could hear that she was tired and shuffled over on the couch to offer her room to sit down. "I've sent a report out to HQ with everything that's happened, and we're going to get support. I have three queries. You might want to sit down."
"I see," Aiesu said, pulling up a seat. Settling down, she was no longer looking at anything in particular - instead scratching at the burns along her arm.
"Do you have any idea as to Hakahn's whereabouts prior to or during the pirate attack yesterday?" Shortly after the debriefing yesterday and the impromptu janitor duty, he decided to get forensic on Hakahn's quarters and office, sweeping it for information, for clues, for trails, anything that would hint at his defection. The others hadn't seen him, and Aiesu was the last person on the list to interview.
He leaned in towards open space, before righting himself and giving Aiesu room to breathe. His sleeves were rolled up and his hands intertwined.
There was an awkward pause.
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. No. He was in his room. Bottled up. Angry."
It was only a few days ago that Hakahn was venting to Keib about the hypocrisies and malaise of the Lorath castes, saying he felt restricted. Being a male in the Matriarchy was bad enough, but being a Fyuunen male was to be born in a shadow to a race of proud and strong women. "I think I know why," he replied after giving his superior's words some deeper thought. "He's was always a frustrated thing."
As he looked down at the floor, he noticed Aiesu was barefoot. He watched her step bounce and her toes wriggle underneath when she was wearing those Nepleslian made shoes of hers and wondered where they went.
Her eyes dropped, following his gaze, then returning to his eyes, taking his gaze with her's.
"Where are your shoes, Aiesu?" he asked, tone shifting from analysing Hakahn to inspecting Aiesu.
"Probably my room," she watched. "Why?"
"You always keep them clean. I saw something on them when I met you in your quarters, jam-tin grenade and all."
"They're vintage. They have to be wrapped up and kept at the right temperature or the fabric weakens."
"They're obviously very valuable to you, but I need a closer look, Aiesu." He was good at spotting differences, and given how Aiesu treated those shoes, he figured she'd have cleaned it as soon as she could. "I promise to keep the fabric intact. I used to have a pair myself before they disintegrated."
"The rubber is mostly burnt," she said, recalling the power-stack. "I can still save the fabric, though"
"That's all I'll need. Second query." He looked over to certain components of the room which had once worn out and were replaced by parts manufactured by Lazarus. Keib's volumetric screens were made by the company, his personal computer was built prior to the Quasiperiodic breakthrough but still a damn fine machine, and his perpetual candy fabricator's antimatter battery was replaced by a Lazarus battery.
"What can Lazarus provide for the Akahar, since it has an interest in the mission? As I said before, I've sent a report and request for help to HQ, and it isn't too late to make a secondary request." Mostly, the request was looking for ship restocking and repair, as well as bartering salvage from the pirate ship for credit and luxuries. Aiesu would've seen it go by, unlike the encrypted report.
"What do you need?" she said. "Getting things out here might take a while but if you can deliver, we can deliver" she stated flatly.
"What can you offer is my question, Aiesu." He leaned to his side and grabbed a datapad from a couchside table and opened a blank space on it to start writing. "Your catalogue is large, and so too are the ship's needs." He simply didn't know where to begin.
"Anything," she said calmly. "Legal or illegal, doesn't matter."
"Any recommendations?"
"I'm an doctor, not a tactician," she grumbled like a child caught with her hand in the cookie-jar, taking pause.
"But I am an engineer..." She could feel the deck through her feet, the faint vibrations of the ships systems -- and the computer core of the ship trickling like whispers. Akahar was showing her age, but in spite of it she was a hard nut to crack.
"The ship is hurting. Supplies would need to be the first order of business; we should repair and re-arm as quickly as we can. Second, time is a factor. Our window to act in this matter is rapidly closing so we need to act fast. Third, we're going to need to extend our reach both in terms of what we can see and what we can grasp: Running head-first into this problem would be our undoing."
"I can't agree more. The basics to get the holes patched will be footed by the Matriarchy, but the fun stuff is where you come in," Keib said as he started to look through the Lazarus catalogue, swiping the datapad's screen to go from page to page as the construct streamed it in, examining his shopping habits and watching his expressions carefully. "Ooh, this looks good..."
Keib and Aiesu heard a thump from somewhere in the ship, and they both paused for a moment. Aiesu focussed for a moment and rolled her eyes when she realised what the cause was while Keib shrugged and continued browsing the catalogue, seeing that there was no problem.
-
It was a draw.
Gough and Yar'mak were watching the two combatants on the floor, one of which had probably broken something thereby ending her ability to fight for now, the other was simply too tired to continue.
Al'ris was surprised that such a small thing was so full of sound and fury (signifying nothing) and yet so full of hurtiness to make that sound and fury (signifying nothing) signify something. She looked around both ways and then grabbed the punching bag that the whole debate started over, unhooked it and carried it with her back to her seat, and kept it close now.
It was hers after all. The thump that went throughout the ship had drawn the attention of Vithr. He'd heard thumps like this frequently and when he did he got two trolleys put up there ASAP. He walked in and put his hands on his hips indignantly and groaned. "Alright then ladies - that's enough. Someone give me a hand."
Gough was about to stand up and help when Yar'mak sprung into action to grab Rae's legs. "So who gets the money now?" Gough leaned in and asked Veronica.
Al'ris was not letting her bag fall into anyone else's hands.
-
Meanwhile, Bes'linn had sent one of the other engineers to go looking for Pratima with the message. If she recalled correctly, she was usually hovering close to where the ARIA was housed on the same deck. With a distance that short, she instead decided to go looking for Pratima herself with the engineer by her side.
"Pratima Forty-Eight? Where are you? We have an offer for you and we'll pay you with some freedoms," she said, walking around and looking for the Polysentience Hub that was relocated from its lonely shuttle to beside the tea and coffee machine. She'd noticed that the coffee machine was beginning to get scribbles and 'heraldry' from Pratima's other bodies. She noticed that some attempt had been made to overclock the machine.
She did notice one of the engineers bouncing around on their toes and working at double speed in a delirium after a cup the other day. "Why does she do this?" The engineer asked.
"I think she's compelled to," Bes'linn replied, "Similar to how exothermic chemical reactions spread and propagate."
"You mean fire?"
"Yes."
