That afternoon
Downtown Folctha, Cimbrean, the Far Reaches
Sister Niral
A little quick search on the “Gaoian Facebook” found her date very quickly. He said his name was Meereo, which was a fairly uncommon name, and when she found his picture…
He’s a Champion!? Oh, Great Mother!
“Champion, huh? Is that good?” Melissa had that open-mouthed, slightly predatory and mischievous grin that Niral had seen on so many of her Human friends.
She stared, dumbfounded. “What do you mean, is that—yes!” She squeed excitedly at her good luck. “Champion! I’ve never even met one! There’s only a few dozen of them among the billions of Gao, so to see one, let alone talk to one, let alone court one…” She yipped slightly in nervous excitement.
“Okay, so a really good score! What’s a Champion?”
“Well…” Niral suddenly realized she didn’t have a quick and easy definition to simply rattle off. “They’re…” She growled at herself gently, “Well, they’re a male thing. Most of the major Clans have them, right? It’s…a Champion is the Clan, in a sort of symbolic way.”
“So they…what, represent it?”
“Yes…after a fashion. There’s no real Human equivalent. If you think of the Clans as maybe ‘nation-states’ they could be something like an…ambassador, and maybe a head of state. Both at the same time, maybe. But…not really. They don’t make policy or…not officially, anyway.”
“I think the word you’re groping for here is ‘figurehead,’ honey.”
“No, they’re more than a figurehead. That particular concept took me a while to grasp while I was studying for my duties, and it’s certainly applicable…but it’s not enough.”
“I think you may be overcomplicating this. They’re a champion. A champion is what they are, and championing is what they do. Got it.”
Niral duck-nodded, “Yes, that’s certainly true. They also embody the Clan’s view of itself, both its ideals and its genetics.”
“Ohhh!” Melissa waggled her expressive eyebrows. “They’re the prime stud!”
Niral winced briefly. “That’s such an…agricultural way to put it. But yes, they are that in fact. Stud-Prime is the correct term, though it’s an ancient title and it’s only used by a few Clans these days. Theoretically a Champion could be distinct from a Stud-Prime, I guess…but with modern genetics and such that wouldn’t make much sense these days. In fact I think the only two Clans that use Stud and Stud-Prime anymore are the Stonebacks and the Emberpelts…I’m rambling, aren’t I?”
“Yes.”
Niral clicked ruefully. “Sorry, I’m just excited! So anyway, yes. Either officially or unofficially…they’re studly.” She chittered suddenly in embarrassed humor.
“Meereo is certainly pretty.”
“He is!” Niral had a certain…silly infatuated expression that was impossible to explain but somehow translated across the species’ barrier.
“But what else does he do, besides be pretty? That’s to do with his Clan isn’t it?” Melissa was a teacher with a keen interest in developmental psychology. She liked encouraging Niral to talk about the Gao and she responded happily, as she usually did. Diplomats could be motor-mouths.
Niral nodded vigorously. “Yes! For the most part, anyway. All the Clans have their own…niche, I suppose you could say. Maybe the best analog in your society would be either a major industry or a government function.”
“Interesting. What about the Clanless?”
“They generally pick a skill or trade and align with a Clan. Nearly all males are at least associates to a minor Clan, even if they cannot claim status as a member. Some even gain entry at a later date or form their own Clan. That’s pretty rare after the age of majority, though.”
“Really? Why?”
“It’s to do with our cognitive development. We enter adulthood around our fifteenth year-day, which I believe is around…twelve years old, for a Human. That means we have our full mental powers but our neural-plasticity decreases, much like yours does around twenty-five of your years.”
Melissa paused, shocked. “That’s…twelve is right around the time we gain those abilities. You don’t even start to think properly until a while after that either. So, when does this start for you?”
“At our adolescence, which is also very early compared to yours. It starts around five of our years. We’ve learned that our development during that window is remarkably fast compared to, well, everyone else. The only species we’ve found that compares is yours, in fact.”
Melissa seemed strangely yet predictably depressed by that revelation. “And we Humans have a much longer window, too.”
“Indeed. But,” Niral by now had long experience with this discussion, “It is not the great disadvantage you fear. It just means you Humans have more time to explore and adapt. A Gaoian? We must choose our path very early and pursue it as fiercely as we can. A cub’s Day of Majority is like your college graduation, really, and they’re just as well-equipped.”
“But you’re stuck, then.”
“Not necessarily! It’s just more difficult to learn deeply. You are experiencing the same thing right now, aren’t you?”
Melissa’s twenty-sixth birthday was less than a month ago. “I…guess? I don’t feel slower but…I dunno. I guess I’ve found myself not really…trying?” She struggled for words.
“Exactly. Let me ask you another question. Would you go back to university right now and study something you’re completely unfamiliar with? Engineering, perhaps? How do you feel you would fare?”
It seemed to click for Melissa, then. “Not well. Somehow I just know my heart isn’t in it and it would be hard. Like, really hard.”
“Exactly! From what I can tell it is much the same for us. I’ve also noticed you Humans seem to consider this a weakness and it embarrasses you. Personally, I don’t see why. It gifts us with focus. That is a quality we see lacking in your kind sometimes.” She half-shrugged, “Different species, different approaches.”
Melissa brooded for a moment on that, but she was rarely one to allow a boy matter go unaddressed for long.
“Okay, fine. Enough of this depressing stuff. He’s a Champion of a Clan, right? Which Clan, and what does that mean for you?”
“Longear, can’t you tell?”
“…Longear? That’s the name?”
“Yes!” Niral chittered, “Males can have a strange sense of humor!”
“…okay, so what do they do?”
“Networks, communications systems, computing infrastructure…I don’t know the details.”
“Wait. So they’re the IT guys.”
“I think so, yes.”
“And Meereo is their Champion.”
“Yes.”
“And he’s fit and super handsome?”
“…yes? Where are you going with this?”
Melissa squeed, loudly. “You’re dating a cute nerdboy with abs! That’s amazing! Like, he could be Doctor Who!”
Niral feigned offense. “Meereo is much more attractive than those Doctors!”
“Hey, I like them! But enough about me. Are you gonna scritch his ears?”
“MELISSA!”
“What? You scritch Bozo’s ears.”
“Bozo deserves it, firstly, and secondly it doesn’t mean the same thing.”
“…Oh. I wanna stop asking questions, don’t I?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, fine. I’ll leave you two kids to it. Where are you going?”
Niral suddenly showed desperation. “…I don’t know yet. Help!”
Melissa shook her head and chuckled like Humans were wont to do, and together they planned out an evening which would impress Niral’s soon-to-be beau.
At least, if Melissa had anything to say about it.
That evening
Admiral Knight’s office, HMS Sharman, Folctha, Cimbrean, the Far Reaches
Champion Genshi of Clan Whitecrest
“You are asking much, Champion Genshi.”
“I am aware, Templar. But I need a degree of freedom if I am to have any hope of being any kind of use, and I cannot, for example, easily cart all of my co-conspirators to Cimbrean for a simple briefing. That would be noticed by even the densest adversary. And I cannot simply invite you to Gao, repeatedly…”
“I understand the problem.” He sighed and took a sip of tea, and while he was at it, stood up to recharge Genshi’s cup. “You are aware of the permissions I must seek for this?”
“I would presume it would involve yours and your allied leaders.”
“Indeed. They are understandably nervous.”
Genshi considered for a moment and decided it was time for a story. Or more aptly, a mild tall tale. “Are you aware of how the Corti system classification scheme works?”
“Vaguely.”
“That is an apt term. Classification isn’t quite as cut-and-dry as they make it out to be, and I think this frustrates them somewhere deep in whatever they have that passes for a soul.”
“Not a fan, are we?” Knight gave an impression of humorless mirth.
“No,” growled Genshi. “I’ve lost good Brothers to those abominations.”
Knight nodded approvingly. “I must say I am not enamored of them myself. We conduct certain business with them, obviously…”
“Warhorse is a floor-shaking reminder of that.” Genshi was still slightly cowed by that meeting. The massive Human was shorter than Daar and yet somehow made the greatest Stoneback seem like a little cub. He was so dense and obviously strong it was difficult to believe, even after reading the brief s, meeting the man, and seeing him reluctantly demonstrate his strength. And to think, Regaari and Warhorse were becoming the closest of friends!
That seemed a very useful alliance to encourage.
“Indeed,” said Knight with a raised eyebrow, “Along with Righteous and Baseball and the whole lot of them.” He set his tea down, “You were saying?”
“Yes. As you may know, shortly before Capitol Station our world received a final classification of nine point nine-two. That is perilously close to Deathworld status.”
“That seems…an oddly specific number.”
“Yes. There are thousands of criteria they use in the calculation, and to their credit many are objective and measurable. Some, however…”
“I don’t think I like where this is going.”
Genshi nodded respectfully.
“There were four surveys conducted. The first exploratory survey had us at a high class eight. The second, before formal contact was established, had us at nine transitional, which prompted further analysis and more ‘wildlife’ samples.” Genshi delivered that with an unmistakable loathsome growl. “The third classified us as a provisional and low-level class nine, and formal contact came shortly thereafter.”
“And yet, your final classification is as close to Deathworld as you can get and not cross the line.”
“Yes, and we suspect that may have resulted from a more aggressive reading of the more subjective factors.”
Genshi had a personality tic. He loved to build scenarios for friends and adversaries and see what conclusions they would draw. Templar was a delightful soon-friend and impressed Genshi with his sharp, dignified wit, as befits one of the most important of all Human officers.
“You think the Hierarchy manipulated the results.”
Genshi duck-nodded. “I consider it likely, yes. We previously considered it a trade war manipulation but in light of DEEP RELIC I think it necessary to revise.”
“To what end?”
“Oh, that’s easy enough. Some in their ranks must perceive either us or our burgeoning alliance as a threat. And frankly, it wasn’t a difficult manipulation to make.” Genshi paused. “Here, let me share something with you. I require you to hold this with discretion, obviously. Consider it ‘top secret’ for our purpose.”
Genshi reached down to his secure communicator—one with both Longear and Human engineers responsible for its design—and tapped away at his personal holodisplay. An email ping sounded on admiral Knight’s secure terminal, and he quickly perused the contents.
“Fourth Claw inductees only?”
“Only the most skilled of Gaoian fighters use their smallest claw. It requires much practice, impressive paw strength, and supreme belief in self.”
“This is not the first combat-related analogy I’ve encountered from your Clan.”
“We are a martial Clan. Violence is one of our primary concerns.”
“Right.”
“Anyway, Fourth Claw is roughly equivalent to your ‘top secret’ with your major intelligence compartments attached. The hashcode at the end signifies the protection specifics, if you require them.” Genshi also flicked over a translated security guide, appropriately redacted for the Humans.
“You came prepared.”
“I try. But to be fair, we were considering sharing this anyway. Now that I know of this Hierarchy many of our previous findings are…alarming.”
Knight didn’t answer, as he was nose-deep in the document.
“Anyway, my point is this: if you review that document you will see that, with creative argument, it is possible to sway a planet up and down and across maybe three levels of classification without entirely breaking its logic. I suspect one could possibly argue Earth is a very high class eleven, or possibly to the top of class thirteen. I think, at this point, nobody wants that. As for my world, I think it would be a stretch, but if you argue resource scarcity…”
Knight skipped forward and skimmed. “There’s room there to assign points.”
“Yes. I personally think the end categorization is close to the truth and that was in no small part due to the Corti themselves. I think they take it as a personal affront to see their system abused.”
“But some faction could have classified you as a Deathworld species.”
“And they might not be entirely wrong. Though, frankly, compared to a real Deathworlder species like yours, I don’t like our odds.”
Admiral Knight reflected on this for a long moment.
“…very well. I’ll confess we were considering this anyway.” He reached into his desk and pulled out two paper letters. One was a Presidential Finding, signed by the American President, and another was the British equivalent, signed by the Prime Minister in the name of His Majesty the king.
“We had these prepared just before we briefed your Clan Brothers on DEEP RELIC. The plan was to give this to Regaari…but I think you are in a better position to use this power.”
Knight pushed the letters over. Genshi read them carefully.
“This is a very broad grant of power.”
“Yes it is, and it frightens me. So let me make things clear: I am a fleet admiral.”
He left everything else unsaid.
“I understand. Because if I fail? No fleet will be necessary to destroy us.”
Genshi signed his name to each letter.
Meereo
He received a message from Niral to meet outside Kobe’s, a Human restaurant specializing in Japanese cuisine with an eye towards curious Gaoians and Humans alike. He was warned to check against his registered allergen list before arriving. He did, noting that his assay put any “shellfish” from Earth strictly off-limits. Gaoians as a rule could eat most Human foods, but things like onions, caffeine, or chocolate? Those could only be indulged sparingly.
As for the shellfish? Well, his documented reaction was mild enough that incidental exposure wouldn’t bother him much. He probably would have been fine sampling some, but since it was a date, and given the symptoms…
Definitely not a good way to earn a mating contract.
He arrived and spotted Niral immediately and took a moment to admire her poise. On “formal” occasions it was considered appropriate in Gaoian society to attend with as little material detritus as possible, and for anyone so inclined that typically meant leaving their many-pocketed vests or sashes behind. Meereo seldom carried much on his person anyway. Niral had considerable burden with her when they first met, most likely owing to the cubs. Without?
She was exquisite.
Someone had helped brush her fur. It flowed gracefully with her every movement and was bewitching to watch. He indulged for a moment, then noticed he was about to pant happily, and decided he wanted more.
He approached and greeted her courteously. “Hello, Niral.”
“Hello, Champion. The evening greets.”
He nodded with a serene expression. That was a bit formal. She’s a little nervous, thought Meereo. He understood. He’d investigated her on “Gaoian Facebook” and found a mid-level and highly competent member of the Female’s diplomatic corps. She’d scored a major assignment as part of a mission to the Humans (!) and her career had progressed steadily from there. She even had some exposure to Clan politics but Meereo suspected she had never dealt at his level, so to speak. He felt no smugness about that as some of the more wretched males might; he was simply happy to have her company.
“You needn’t be so careful with me, I don’t bite! What are we doing?”
“Oh! Uh…our reservation isn’t for another [hour] so I thought we would walk down Delaney Row?”
“Lead on, it’s fun to explore!”
She asked many questions of him which he tried to answer. Some of the more interesting: What’s life like as a Champion? (“Busy!”); Do you get into many Challenges? (“No, thankfully. Some of the other Champions would tear me to pieces.”); Why do I smell blood? (“…err, I may have gotten into a little fight today. Nothing big.”); Are you okay? (“Yes yes, it’s no big—”); Did you win? (“…well, honestly, I’m not sure. I think ‘no’ is a safe answer.”); Did they win? ( [chittering laughter] “Well, that blood you smell ain’t mine, so draw your own conclusions!”)
And so forth. He found the questions oddly endearing. Many females he’d courted had asked similar questions and that made him wonder: did males do the same to the females? They seemed to have a desperate curiosity into the male life, as if their own life experiences were so radically different.
Maybe they were! His own questions were in many ways a reflection of his own nearly cub-like curiosity: Why diplomacy? (“Why not? How can we avoid pointless conflict and fear if we do not communicate?”); Did you enjoy the Human mission? (“Oh yes, they are fascinating! I met a handsome Firefang too. Not as cute as you…”); What convinced you to relocate here? (“I’m not entirely sure. I think…the Humans, they have this energy about them, and I think it’s important we understand and make friends. I mean, look on the galactic stage? Who else?”); Do they really hate Nava? (“Only if you tell them what it is!”); Is chocolate really as good as I hear? (“Great Mother YES but…be very careful. Go to the ‘chocolatier’ and have ONE, and no more.”) What are they like ‘drunk?’ (“Very strangely and entertainingly broken!”)
They walked across the bridge and meandered along the river, telling stories and humorous exaggerations from their lives. She opened up quickly once she had something to discuss. Always she tried to shift the discussion to him, and always he wanted to hear more about her. Maybe it came naturally; diplomats were always talking about others, after all.
But Meereo didn’t mind. She was incredibly intelligent. He suspected she was at least his equal even if their domains could not possibly be more different. But at the heart of it…
“See, that’s the thing. You and I? We really do the same job.”
She chittered happily but caught the analogy instantly. “We’re both communicators, huh? But mine is so much easier to grasp! It’s just people talking to each other, sharing their dreams, hiding their fears…yours is all about bits and bytes and…” she threw up her paws comically to illustrate her amused frustration. “Whatever else you do! I’m sorry, I was never good in that class.”
“And I was a very awkward little cub for quite some time. I understand.”
They turned back towards the restaurant and from there he tried his best to explain what a network was. He loved doing this for the new initiate cubs; it was an excuse to practice storytelling!
“Well, networks, they’re built in layers. It’s like…you take a job, right? Some task, like ‘deliver this document’ to my most bestest friend. With me?”
She chittered at the childish turn of phrase. “Yes! it will be my diary, filled with gossip about all the cute cubs and what Clans they might strike.”
“A female’s diary? Well. Clearly this will be far too hefty to ship in one box!”
“Hey!”
“Oh hush, it’s funny and you know it.”
“It could be a male’s sharepage, filled with claw sharpeners and pulse rifles!”
He waggled his eyebrows, “And pictures of Straightshields and Stonebacks being all macho and doing manly things! Scars everywhere, probably flexing wildly with a young Sister on each arm, or something.”
She nodded sagely. “And explosions, off in the background. Probably with some very bad image effects!” She said that with a sly set of her ears.
“Oh, the worst! Something a fresh initiate would do. Oh, and fire, too.”
“Well, obviously! How could I forget?”
“Possibly too busy writing in your diary?”
He earned a gentle little claw-pinch on his shoulder for that.
“Ow!”
“Serves you right. A female has her dignity, you know.”
They chittered together and drew closer as they walked under the magnificent trees. Gao had something like them but they were few and far between. Many parts of Earth were so covered in their dense foliage (or so he heard) that one could hardly walk between them!
He returned to his story. “Anyway. So this massive, incomprehensibly huge diary—” another pinch, this one suggestively lower, “—Hey! Anyway, like I said, networks are built in layers. So the next step would be to divide the diary into separate boxes, or something like that. Make sense?”
“Sure, I follow. Then you need to ship the boxes?”
“Ah, see, you gotta think like a computer! You’re jumping to the end like a person does, but computers are stupid. So what’s the very next step?”
She considered. “Address the boxes?”
“Very good! But what does the guy at the other end do? If he receives thousands of boxes—”
“Thousands?”
“Just go with it. He’s gonna want to open them in the right order. Maybe he gets them all jumbled up and out of sequence, maybe some get lost and he needs to ask for another copy…”
“So the boxes must be numbered.”
“Yup! Now, what if someone else is sending a stream of boxes?”
“…oh. So you need to identify which boxes are from whom?”
“Well, yes, but you already gotta do that. What if the same person is sending two different box-streams?”
She stopped walking for a moment. “Why would a person do that?”
He smiled his most fetching smile, “Oh, a person wouldn’t. But like all analogies things start to get silly to accommodate reality. Computers? They may well send many messages to each other at the same time, and all will be divided into discrete ‘packets’ like our boxes.”
“So the boxes are marked both for their number in the stream, and for which specific message they contain.”
“Very good! They’re also marked for ‘application.’ That’s kinda like the name on the address.” He snuggled a little closer to her. They weren’t far from the restaurant now, and the smells were beginning to tantalize his nose.
“Okay, so then you mail the boxes?”
“That skips a bunch of steps but that’s fine. So, yeah. Hand off our highly contrived mega-diary box-stream to the carrier. So some burly laborer comes around and picks up all his boxes, but now the network needs to sort them!”
“Well…it has the addresses. Each box has it right on the label.”
“Yes, but now things get even sillier. Real addresses are, well, person-oriented, right? 207 Fyu Parkway, Wi Kao City, and so on. If you break that down, there’s actually a huge number of steps in decoding that address.”
And Fathers, she was sharp. “Oh! So, in a network, since it has to do this, um, thousands of times a second—”
“Trillions, in larger nodes.”
“…wow. So then you definitely need something easy for a computer.”
“We have the same problem in actual networks. The ‘network address’ which you never actually see? It identifies both a destination network and a destination node, and it’s variable in length.”
She considered. “That means it needs to take multiple steps to look up…whatever it needs to look up, I guess?”
“Yes, sometimes thousands of steps. The router—that’s the machine which routes traffic between networks—”
“Hey, I knew that, at least!”
He nodded agreeably, “I make no assumptions, it’s safer. Anyway, the router? What it needs to do is figure out the most specific route for each package and send them along the way. So, maybe the router knows how to get to Fyu Parkway directly, but another only knows how to get to Wi Kao. Both of those locations are encoded in the address, right? But each is its own destination, and one is more specific. A router needs to always use the most specific route it knows.”
“I don’t know anything about how you would do this in a computer, but that sounds like it’s complicated.”
“It is, and it’s very processor-intensive, too. This is called the longest prefix match and it’s something we want to avoid. There’s a lotta tricks involved that we’re gonna ignore but one of the cleverest we do is use another layer below the infosphere network address, called the local address. It’s only used for local delivery so they’re very simple addresses.”
“I’m not following that part…”
“Okay. Imagine the local network is a route run by one courier. He knows where every single delivery point on his route is, so sorting for him is a very quick operation. He doesn’t need to think nearly as hard as the guy sorting all the packages in the main office, right? So, to finish out the analogy, the laborer sorting your packages would look at the address and go ‘Aha! I know the postal code for that!’ And he would slap a barcode on them and carry on. The local delivery courier? He just looks at the numbers, and doesn’t need to think hard.”
She was so quick to learn! “And it’s easier to look up just a number?”
“Yes, especially if all the numbers it might be looking up are the same size.”
“…I think I am glad I am just a lowly diplomat.”
Meereo grumbled happily and leaned in with a friendly side-hug. “And I am glad for diplomats like you! I get excited about stuff and get trapped on a topic.”
“Me too! For example,” they walked up to the door, “What I’m going to eat!”
He chittered and gave a quick, friendly little pant, and they walked into Kobe’s.
Late evening
Whitecrest Enclave, Alien Quarter, Folctha, Cimbrean, the Far Reaches
Genshi
Meereo was clean. That was good. And Genshi now had the power to brief him. That was even better, and he had the power to delegate that authority to other Gaoians after ensuring their suitability. The Humans had even made him an Original Classification Authority, a Cabinet-level degree of trust from either Human government. With that he had broad and sweeping powers to gain access to Allied information, protect new information under new or existing access programs, and grant that access to others as well.
The degree of the grant was itself worrying. It meant the Humans very much needed Genshi to succeed, and that meant he could likely call in favors.
And that meant he would likely need them.
He spent the evening reviewing his correspondence. Most of the replies were cautiously reassuring; Gao as a whole was proving to be mildly skeptical of either the Dominion or the Alliance. Which, while good, made the enthusiastically pro-Dominion forces both easier to identify and depressingly worrisome in their wide penetration across Gaoian society.
He decided to sort his contacts into strong-Dominion, weak-Dominion, ambivalent, and anti-Dominion. He spent most of the evening cautiously weighing his correspondence and sorting it all out.
In the end, a pattern emerged. the strong-Dominion faction was universally well-placed in all the Clans, and depressingly, they were strong amongst the Clan of Females as well. It was a small group but they were perfectly positioned to effectively control Gaoian society, with enough of a nudge.
He also noted his own Clan no longer matched the pattern and that would not remain unnoticed by a skilled adversary. He needed to plan and act quickly. Which of course left the question: what would he do? Dislodging that many all at once would not be possible with any subtlety.
He would need to kill them all, probably. And do it quickly. But he saw no way for Whitecrest to survive such a conflict, so that was not a viable option.
He really needed to brief Meereo. Once he could run his mischievous query, he might have better answers.