CHAPTER TWO
AIDEN
“So what exactly is the plan?” I asked, turning to Henderson now that we’d got the all clear from Kade.
“We’re going to have to find masters for them all, but that’s going to take time, so we need somewhere for them to stay in the meantime.
And we’ll need to give them all a medical check, to make sure they weren’t injured in the journey here. ”
“Actually, I had an idea about that,” a voice said from beside me, and I turned to see Commander Soka Grel peering up at me.
She was a Wasop, four feet tall with vibrant black and yellow stripes across her skin.
Due to a chance quirk of genetics, she had a black mask right across her eyes, making her look rather like one of the bandits in the old-style children’s cartoons.
Soka worked in Employee Health and Safety – a challenging position when one of the frequent duties of a lot of the staff here was being shot at, but she’d always tackled her responsibilities with both diligence and good humour.
“There have been a few suggestions to house them in the barracks,” Soka explained.
“There are plenty of temporary dorms available. But I’ve read quite a few of the reports you’ve written about dimari behaviour – Kade, your input would probably be good on this as well,” she added.
“I thought perhaps we could house them all together in one of the conference rooms. We’d need to move mattresses in there for them to sleep on, but there’s a bathroom directly off the side of the room, and we can deliver food to them on a regular schedule.
I’m just thinking that perhaps they’d all be more comfortable being in the same room together, rather than locked away in their own little cells.
According to your reports, going to meet their master for the first time can be quite daunting, and I’m hoping this might minimise their stress, while we get all the arrangements sorted out. ”
Soka wasn’t the only person on the base who’d taken a keen interest in the dimari over the past year, and I was grateful for the effort that had been put into understanding them.
“What do you think?” I asked Kade. “Would that help?” Personally, I thought it was a great idea, and I was glad Soka had thought of it.
But I refrained from saying so just yet.
It wasn’t impossible for Kade to disagree with any opinion I had, but I was aware by now that it was easier for him to voice his own opinion clearly and honestly if he got to do so before I’d said anything.
Kade was highly intelligent, and could often provide keen insights into unique situations, but at the same time, he’d spent two decades being trained to please his master, which could sometimes make offering an opinion that differed from mine very stressful for him.
I waited, expecting him to wholeheartedly endorse the idea…
but instead, he hesitated, a frown settling on his face.
I was suddenly doubly relieved that I hadn’t butted in before letting Kade speak.
“I appreciate the good intentions in that plan,” he said slowly.
“But I think perhaps it won’t make as much difference as you might hope.
The dimari in the crate have not been activated, so they’re not going to bond with anyone just yet.
But at the same time, they’re also not in their normal, rational frame of mind.
They’re no longer students in training. When the Eumadians need to ship out dimari without activating them, they use their neuro-engineering machines to put them into a form of stasis.
The dimari are conscious and able to respond to simple commands, but they’re not functioning on a normal cognitive level.
They’re just… waiting. They’re waiting to be activated, and waiting to meet their masters, and not a whole lot else really registers with them until that happens.
“Putting them all in the same room certainly won’t make anything worse,” he added, with his usual thorough insight into any given situation.
“And if that makes them easier to look after, I certainly wouldn’t object to it.
But if you’re purely aiming to make them comfortable, it won’t make much difference one way or the other. ”
“Well, you learn something new every day,” I said, feeling a little miffed by Kade’s announcement.
“I had no idea this ‘stasis’ thing even existed.” I wasn’t annoyed with Kade.
I was just uncomfortable with constantly feeling like I was on the back foot.
This wasn’t the first time I’d learned something unexpected about the dimari, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. But when caring for so many of them was my responsibility, I hated the idea that I was still missing key information that would have an impact on their health and safety.
“When you say they’re capable of following basic commands, what kind of stuff are we talking about? ”
“They’ll follow you if you tell them to. They’ll eat or sleep when told to. They might obey simple instructions, like ‘pick up this chair’, or ‘open this door’. But they’ll have minimal responses to questions and an inability to follow directions that include more than one step.”
That was as fascinating as it was horrifying. “How aware are they of their surroundings?” I asked Kade, but to my disappointment, he shrugged.
“I was never put into stasis myself,” he explained. “So I have no first hand experience of it. I’ve seen the effects in a number of dimari who were being prepared for shipping. But I’ve never had the opportunity to ask any of them how it felt, after they met their masters.”
There was a deep frown on Soka’s face. “Okay, let me ask a slightly different question. Hypothetically speaking, if a group of dimari were sent to meet their masters, but they weren’t put into stasis, would they rather be housed together or separately?”
“Together,” Kade said, without hesitation. “We’re raised in group housing, so we’re all used to being together until we’re shipped out.”
“Then I think we should put them in a room together,” Soka said, turning back to me.
“As Kade said, it’s not going to make anything worse, but I’m working on the theory that if they’re actually more aware than they appear to be, then they’ll be calmer and happier to be together.
It’s like when people are in a coma – some people report being able to remember things that happened or conversations around them after they wake up.
So I think we should treat them as if they’re fully conscious, and provide all the appropriate comforts and the level of respect that we would under normal circumstances.
Worst case, we end up wasting a bit of our own time and energy.
Best case, we minimise the stress they’re under and set them up for more fruitful meetings with their masters. ”
“That sounds like a reasonable plan to me,” I said, still aiming for mild agreement, rather than wholehearted endorsement, just in case Kade had anything more to say about it. “Kade? Does that work for you?”
Kade nodded. “I think that would be a suitable arrangement. And thank you. I appreciate the effort you’re putting into looking after them.”
Soka beamed at him, but then she sobered. “Well, I suppose the next thing is figuring out how to get them out of the crate.”
I glanced at Henderson. “Okay, best case scenario: We open the crate, they’re not activated, we tell them to follow us to the conference room, and they do so without any kind of fuss or protest. Worst case, all this information is shit, so we open the crate and they all immediately bond to the first person they see.
The risk of that happening seems fairly low, but the consequences if it does could be dire. So how do we handle that?”
Henderson stared at the crate, frowning.
“I think we need to clear the docking bay. And then select… maybe three people? People who could handle having a dimari bond to them, just in case things go wrong. I’m thinking that if there’s three of us here, then we might end up with three, or at worst, maybe four bonded to each person, rather than eight all on one person.
Even that’s not ideal, but it’s more about damage limitation at this point.
“Then, all going well, we escort them to the conference room and explain that we’re contacting their masters and they should arrive in a couple of days.
That gives the dimari some clear expectations and buys us a bit of time to find them masters who are suited to their various skills and personalities. ”
“You might want to get copies of their operations manuals while you’re at it,” I said to Henderson. “We’re going to need detailed information about their training if we’re going to be able to match them to suitable masters.”
Henderson nodded. “As for who stays, I’m prepared to be one of the three. This base is my responsibility, and while I don’t want a dimari, there would be little stopping me from looking after one if I had to.”
“I’ll stay, if you’re okay with that,” someone else volunteered, and I looked around to see it was Major Toth, a Solof woman with vibrant purple skin.
She was one of the base’s doctors, and she’d presumably been called down to run the medical exam on the dimari.
“Again, I don’t particularly want a dimari, but I’m single and I don’t have kids, so they wouldn’t be terribly disruptive to my personal life, if the worst does happen. ”
“Thank you,” I said, honestly surprised that anyone would volunteer so easily. Looking after a dimari, particularly in the first few months, was hard work, and their needs challenged a lot of the usual social norms of Alliance society. But we still needed someone else.
“I could-” I started to say, but Henderson cut me off.