The room was large and had large steel rings one hundred centimataars from the floor. Four barred windows high up in the wall let the light into the room. It was better than the small holding cell he had been in. That small room with two wooden buckets smelled like piss. The odor of this room was determined by one of the guards. His body odor would linger in any room he entered long after he left.
“No,” said Dubitam. “I don’t trust you.”
“I’m a historian, I don’t lie,” Koven said. “It is required by professional qualifications and also by law.” Koven sat at a table. His arms and legs were chained to a ring built in the floor beside the table.
“There is some way you intend to trick us,” the scientist replied. Dubitam looked at MinKey, who shrugged her indecision.
“And you are from Central Kath?” asked MinKey.
“Yes. How many info dumps have you performed?” asked Koven.
“Why?” asked MinKey.
“It is data and could be useful in calculations for decision models,” he replied.
“Was there really a near extinction event for the known universe?” asked Dubitam. “Really?”
“Yes. I understand the effect the info transfer is having on you. However, asking for confirmation of something that you already know to be true, well, perhaps it’s not your best line of inquiry.”
“Are you being a smart-ass?” asked MinKey.
“Yes, a little bit,” replied Koven.
“And our ancestors were criminals,” said Dubitam.
“You should consider the specific crimes. It was at the end of the economic period. Many of those sent here were mostly guilty of being poor. The fuel for many desperate acts is often found in an empty stomach,” replied Koven.
Dubitam picked up the reader from the table.
“And recombination at an atomic level is beginning to actually happen?” Dubitam asked.
“Yes.”
“The alchemist dream,” MinKey added.
“Yes. But it is possible that all needs can finally be met. It’s mostly a question of scale at this point.”
“Scale?” asked MinKey.
“Right now, it is in a huge device with large energy needs. Pratman’s Device Evolution Law is just beginning. Once it is reduced to the size of a remedium and available to all, then we will have something remarkable.”
“What are the weapons systems on your cruiser?”
“There are no weapons systems for the cruiser, only personal weapons.”
“What is the range of the ship?” asked MinKey.
“Range is obsolete. It will go anywhere. Where is Rusa?”
“Your android?” asked MinKey. “She has a name?”
“Yes. Where is she?”
“She’s broken. I tried to find a reset button, but there isn’t one,” replied Dubitam.
“Broken?”
“No response. Dead eyes. Nobody home. Kaput,” replied Dubitam. Koven looked at MinKey, who nodded her agreement.
“Have you used the remedium on her?”
“No. I didn’t think of that,” said MinKey, and she leaned forward slightly. Her arm knocked a glass, and her fast hands stabilized it.
“Why does she have a name?” asked MinKey.
“You have a name,” replied Koven.
“But I am alive,” replied MinKey.
“If you forget the traditional definition, perhaps she is alive. If you ask her, she will tell you that she thinks she is alive.”
“Then she is immortal,” said Dubitam.
“Potentially, yes. But practically, it’s not very likely. She sits on an evolutionary process just like us.”
“Why 1,138,731?” asked MinKey. “It makes no sense to me.”
“It’s a number,” said Koven. “But consider that after a million revs even the strongest survival instinct begins to fade.”
“But no one gives up immortality,” replied MinKey, pointing at the man in chains.
“Yet we do,” replied Koven.
“Why?” MinKey asked.
“There are quite a lot of theories. There have been a lot of studies on it.”
“And?”
“No agreement. I am not qualified to suggest a preferred theory. Life is precious, yet every human eventually chooses to give it up. Even Emilio Dure gave up at three million revs. And at two million he boasted that he would go on forever. Yet he gave up.”
“I will surpass Emilio Dure,” said Dubitam.
“You have to give it all back,” said Koven.
“No we don’t. No way. I give it back, I get old, I die. Why would I ever give it back?” said Dubitam. He frowned as he sat across from Koven.
“You do not operate from a position of strength,” Koven said.
Dubitam laughed. “You talk like we are the captives.”
“Explain that,” MinKey said.
“Quarantine. No contact and definitely no tech transfers. A rating is subject to appeal for all Primitive 1 planets. You’re Primitive 3.”
“But we can adapt quickly,” replied MinKey.
“You’re still carnivores,” replied Koven.
“And you’re a jerk,” said MinKey.
“I am a historian.”
“So tell me, historian, when was the last time you lied?”
“The day before I got my license. I told over two hundred lies. Everything that was, wasn’t, according to my lips. It was my last day of freedom, the last day of blended existence. Before I lost the luxury of opinions on everything. And conviction. How I do miss my being convinced of something. But convictions die in the historian.”
“Is that why no historian has ever lived a million revs?” asked MinKey.
“While I am not an expert on that topic, your reasoning seems good.”
“Why give it up? Why become something that will kill you? Or if not kill you, then make you give up your life exhausted earlier than everyone else? I don’t get it. It should be the one job that everyone would hate. Why become a historian?”
“To do something that leaves a mark.”