Raev lounged against the couching curve of the alcove, where he was viewing a covert signal extraction of imperial news programming in purple tint. He’d had a full day of instructing novice plumber-technicians in the new wing. This included a couple messes, because in all honesty, it had been a while since he’d been top teen helper for the plumbing at the Hirylien refugee situation. He had gotten really good at it though, even working with scraps. This time they had the good material in quantity, and they just had a smashing success with the simultaneous flush. Despite all their similarities to Humans, Vedani do not excrete solid waste, so this had been an exciting sociological foray.

In the little warping broadcast, the new King Proxem was making declarations about danger and safety. He urged people to take care of home, reminding them that they are, of course, the best that ever was.

All of this just kills Raev a little more, groaning as he collapses further. He then propped himself back up with an offensive gesture from his home planet.

Looking at each one of the attending royal children, he considered what was known about Mireille, Cristobal, and Carlo. He had a dad when he was Cristobal’s age, too. They’d look different if they knew what he’d done. It bothered him a little that he didn’t have a plan for them, though that was probably for the better.

Raev’s eyes drooped balefully at this guy in the image with his important persona, trying to look competent and real. Sturlusson could read the policy transitions between lines of speech, shifts after the passing of Celeste. Oh, Raev had hated her so much. Still, he might hate Vario more, knowing whose counsel and implementation were most critical in the massacre of his home world by biological warfare.

These wounds were starting to feel older, now. Surprising… maybe something had changed. Just then, a message reached him. Oh – it’s this one. Sturlusson hadn’t heard from er for a while, but remembered the conditions for next contact from the Red Nexus dragons. He considered the possibilities and reformed his sinews, exhaling exhaustion before giving this his attention.

They all stood in the hallway corner, talking excitedly: representatives of every research discipline currently involved at the Arch, a place with the subaquatic capacity of half an Alpha orbit station and the curiosity of an interstellar species or two. Researchers threaded through the social knot they formed, turning back and forth between each other, talking. Some were leaning back on the wall with deep sighs and wide eyes, or clutching their heads and laughing. There were serious hushes, hands in front of mouths. The Hoopoe was there, Buckminster and Arjun Woollibee were there, Arys Steinman was there, Maryan Waters was there – anyone who wasn’t there didn’t hold a leading research position, but they most certainly did hear the building-wide broadcast of the classic tune, ‘Major Breakthrough’ by Silken Tongue.

In the past forty-eight hours (during which some had not slept), they’d been able to interpret the data they were receiving, then they’d translated it to human-range audio and listened to it, then they confirmed its origins, and now everyone here needed to know.

Leading up to this, they’d translated layers of patterns from their readings, which had been gaining in depth and texture of reception through their advancements. Their compartmentalized projects seemed to have co-evolved into sudden cooperation. ME & TH discerned and sorted timing signatures. EG & MW discovered and quantified tonalities. AL monitored and analyzed conditional factors. PM measured recurrence and reverberative derivatives. PR recorded particle arrangements as wave shapes. MC made amplitude comparisons. RH worked on recognizing nesting while RS & AS interpreted shapes. PA identified conjoining characters. RS calculated radiance and decay. KU wrote data-interlocking equations. RL sussed out source coordination. BW & AM kept up and kept ahead with instrument reception tuning. JM spearheaded creation of gap algorithms. Out of every 1-6 person team, some of them were here. Someone produced a camera and got them all to look at it, incredulous faces filling a hallway, five and more people deep.

They were all discussing the audio track they’d been listening to, which was not the song called ‘Major Breakthrough’. The implications of its evidence broke the rules of this world open to reveal another, real yet other. They’d suspected enough to get that far, but this told them so much more in a stunning fashion. What did they believe should be done about it?

Pointing to the papers in his hand, Arys Steinman turned to The Hoopoe asking, “Can we make a composition like this?”

“I’m going to say yes,” replied the lad, “but it will only be like it in certain ways, with our specific dimensional fingerprint, the way it contains its dimensional fingerprint. But I think I can make it fit like two halves of a locket, and please don’t ask for more explanation at this point. I’m pretty sure what I need is a specialty 6/15 Live Selector MatrixCube.”

Steinman received multiple key points from this reply one after the other for the first time. “Guessing from your context, that sounds like an item for music production.”

“Yeah. I’d want to order it custom, which I wouldn’t consider cheap, and will take a little more time than instant acquisition. Like the Charged Filter. And I need the premium software, and I’m going to mod it, which will void support and might mean legal fees. You can tell I’ve already thought about this.”

“If it’s mass market, then it costs no more than our toilet paper, even at custom rates. I second your request. We’ll have it sooner than anyone else can get it, and you can order the gold trim. We might even get them to work for us.”

“I think all we need to do is order one. We have to wait for a surfacing until we can send for it, right?”

“We’ll be coming up really soon. Priority.”

NAME/AGE
Chrysanthe Renaud, 7

PLACE OF RESIDENCE
Alisandre Capital

HA235 PATIENT QUESTIONNAIRE
– How have you felt since returning home?
It’s weird. Sometimes I think about the people on the H planet that didn’t get better, and how lucky I am that I did. Everything’s a little brighter, or maybe I’m just thankful.

– How are your friends and family treating you?
A little like a hero, or someone famous. Like I survived because I was strong. We were in the news, on tv. Everybody cares, but some kids are more interested in what it was like meeting the royal children. I’m glad my daddy survived too, and we’re even closer now.

– Would you say that readjusting has been easy, or difficult?
Easy. They forgave my homework, but I’ll still have to pass the tests.

– Do your affected senses feel better, worse, or the same as before?
Maybe I just pay better attention, so it’s like I hear and see more now.

– Have you changed activities since your illness? If so, what has changed?
I watch more news now, because it feels like something I’ve been a part of. I had to get slowly more active after all the time in bed, but I get to go back to gymnastics soon.

– When you think of Pyrean Midsummer, how do you feel?
My dad said it was lucky to be born so near Pyrean Midsummer. This is the first one I remember seeing. It was beautiful, but now I wonder if luck can go either way.

– What do you think of the care provided by the Imperium?
I’m still alive because of them.