by Bob Kite
~o0o~
The human hybrid was born in the Imuq manner; fully formed and adult size, instinctually preprogrammed with autonomic physical functionality and basic Imuqi cultural imperatives. He stood up to look around and focused on Empathor as the highest-ranking Imuq present, awaiting instructions.
In the two years extended gestation since the human's inception, Empathor had pretty much been on his own. He had made a positive impact on Imuqi society, curtailing sociopathic events and serving as an emotional safety outlet in general. The Strategors acknowledged those contributions but saw no value in most of his suggestions and had long since ignored his further possible usefulness.
Empathor deeply detested their self-appointed authority as well as the senseless rhythms and repetitions of the society they created. He felt to his core that the status quo of Imuq as an evil that needed to be addressed. He slowly learned of the purposefully hidden repository of knowledge the Strategors hid and set out to learn its secrets. He was pleased with the result of his hybrid scout and took the first steps in the newborn’s education.
~o0o~
"You are Scout. Come with me."
Scout took his first steps, imprinting actual experiences in his human brain along the way while comparing them to his Imuqi instincts. Their destination was several thousand steps away, and twice Scout became hungry. As did any Imuqi he simply called to passing Nourishors, who extended nipple and kept pace until he dismissed them. The Nourishors metabolism was designed to process the monoculture grain to produce the milk that all Imuqi subsisted on.
Empathor and Scout eventually reached an exceptionally large Chambor that contained an assortment of two hundred Imuqi menials.
"Instructor, this is Scout. He is new; train him through level one. Inform me when this is accomplished."
"Certainly, Empathor. Scout, join the others!"
The concept of "others" was not included in Scout's instincts, nor had his human mind anything to relate, but a tendril rose from Instructor's flooring and gave him a gentle shock. Scout jumped slightly and turned around, confused. Another shock, slightly stronger this time, started him walking in the proper direction. Two more shocks followed by a pleasant vibration beneath his feet enforced the idea and he needed no further prompting.
A far section of Instructor glowed blue, along with a command, "Everyone, go to the blue light!" Several squawks and protests greeted the tendril shocks, but as a group they soon made their way to the blue section. Once there, another section turned red, followed by the go command. Scout never took more than two turns before he anticipated the simple requirements, but marched along with the rest who sometimes needed a dozen lessons before moving on to the next.
They were eventually allowed a rest period to feed and eliminate (in a special corner of Instructor) before moving on to more advanced lessons. They began by choosing between different colors on command and breaking into groups. Each grouping learned specialized lessons designed towards their soon to come duties. As level ones, this included such skills as picking up objects and moving them, cleaning, replacing, and other menial tasks as required, all acquired through simple Pavlovian training.
Scout could have graduated earlier than he did, but he'd fail many times at performing a task not from lack of aptitude but from intense boredom as his mind wandered. Empathor came after a few weeks, watched Scout perform a few task, then led him to the level two Instructor.
There was less variety among these Imuq trainees; two normal size Chambors connected to an outlet and a group of Transports identical to those that carried Empathor. The basic training method progressed to the “tell them, show them, have them do”, and critique stage. The reward came in the form of knowing they accomplished the task properly.
They also learned to use their own initiative to overcome minor obstacles, as well as pre-plan for multi-step tasks. The Transports, for instance, needed to navigate, inquire, estimate weight requirements and the number of interlocking members thereby required, as well as group cooperation and leadership.
Since Scout was in a unique category, he trained with each group as much as possible and after several weeks, matured intellectually to about the level of a normal five-year-old. He also sensed Empathor's pleasure at his progress and developed a human attachment in addition to an Imuqi bonding.
The next ten years completed Scout's formal education. Empathor enrolled him in a custom curriculum across dozens of specialized fields, especially those in engineering, problem solving, deduction, and inference, and the sciences of mathematics, physics, and biology. Scout also trained physically with Protectors, Exterminators, and Inquisitors. Empathor frequently dropped by, both to monitor his progress and to strengthen their emotional connection. By the end of these courses, Scout was the intellectual and physical equal of any well-educated and physically trained human on Earth.
Eventually, by popular demand among the Imuqi, the Strategors officially recognized Empathor to his office. This granted him both access to their leadership meetings and a vote in the rare instances consensus was not achieved. This power he used sparingly and only pushed for important issues that affected the well-being of Imuq society as a whole. He stayed in the background as much as possible to begin an intense personal mentoring program with Scout.
Under Empathor's tutelage, Scout's intellect continued to grow to an I.Q. of nearly 200, the equal of an Empathor or Strategor and pretty much the maximum his human derived brain could handle. Scout mastered all the biosciences that Imuqi culture based itself on and even surpassed Empathor's understanding of Strategor wisdom. He also, of course, took on Empathor's subversive attitude toward the Imuqi leadership structure, although without the underlying hatred.
Empathor's dream, although he did not have the exact words, was an egalitarian society in which each individual had equal opportunity to contribute and succeed to any position. He was convinced that the Strategor’s hidden secret knowledge cache held the key.
Scout had successfully spent his life concealed from the Strategors due to their circumscribed daily habits but was able to track their musings by interviewing the Imuqi that served the council. He had a knack of relating to any Imuqi and get them to speak freely and then fit each tidbit of conversation into an overall pattern.
The breakthrough came from a lowly Transport, who bragged about carrying the great St. Acq on a long trip through an unused portion of the warren. The Transport was mildly shocked that the Strategor had dismissed all the Transports before the end of the journey. It was almost scandalous to think of a Strategor locomoting under his own power.
Scout inferred the Strategor's drop off location, located miles down abandoned bare rock tunnels, as possibly the Library for which he had been looking. As he visited the location, he was surprised to see a side path plugged off by a lone Chambor when he arrived.
"Hello Chambor, I'm Scout."
"Hello, Scout."
"Please open the access portal."
"I'm sorry Scout, I'm not sure I can do that."
"Why would that be, Chambor?"
"Strategor Acq instructed me not to open my portal for anyone but him. He is the highest authority in Imuq. But I am conflicted."
"Can you tell me the cause of your conflict?"
Scout had to be gentle and simple because, as a level-two, Chambor had the intellectual development of a five-year-old human and easily stressed.
"You are, Scout! We are taught that Strategors are the highest authority, but your comm organ vibrates at an even higher level! Are you a higher authority? I am confused and frightened Scout and don't know what to do!"
Scout did not know what Chambor meant. However, he did have a detailed understanding of Chambor physiology. While he mentally reviewed chamber specifications, he noticed a legacy response structure left over from the early days of genetic manipulation.
"Of course you can't contradict an order from a Strategor, so please be at p
eace. Would you feel bad if I opened your portal manually?"
The question momentarily startled Chambor, but the idea pleased him as it fulfilled both the Strategor's order and Scout's desire.
"That would be fine, Scout. But...I don't know how you might do that."
"That's ok Chambor, I do."
Scout walked to Chambor's left side, gently pushed his hand along a corner of the rock floor to lift flesh, and gently tickled a slightly textured spot near the edge.
"Hee hee hee tee hee!"
As Chambor rippled in a fit of giggly laughter, the portal irised open in autonomic response to the emergency protocol.
"Can you remain open until I return, Chambor?"
"With pleasure Scout. Thank you for whatever you did! It was fun."
Inside Chambor, Scout saw one object, and one occupant. The object occupied the center. It was a ten-foot tall spiral shell, eight foot wide at the base and came to a point at the top. As he walked around it, he saw a small rounded half-oval opening at the bottom, large enough to enter if he were to keep his arms above his head.
The occupant of the chamber was a lithe Imuqi crouched against a far corner who quivered his many appendages in anxiety.
"Hello Entertainor, I am Scout. Are you in distress?"
Entertainor was equipped with various vocal organs, several of which stuttered and fluttered before he focused on a piccolo-like snout nestled between two arms.
"I...I was told only Strategor Acq would ever enter here. I have never seen anyone else since my training."
"It's ok," interjected Chambor, "Scout is my friend!"
That at least relaxed Entertainor enough that he stood up straight and faced Scout, switching to another voice that sounded more like a bass viola.
"Have you been in here long, Entertainor?"
"The moment I finished school St. Acq brought me here and I received all the stories from my aged predecessor. I was chosen as the most adept at remembering, and follow an honored line of eighty-seven generations."
"What are your duties here?"
"He sings and dances stories for me!” Chambor interrupted again, "I like the funny ones and the brave ones. I don't like the sad ones, though."
"Yes, I do that," Entertainor responded wistfully, "but my primary duty is to record in song and dance the effects on Strategor Acq when he tastes of the honey. It is my pleasure to add them to the annals of my predecessors."
"So you know what this object is?"
"No... well, maybe..."
Entertainor was a level three, the equivalent of a human craftsman, whose craft was recording and replaying historical moments in prose, poetry, music, and movement. As his finely tuned mind ran through hundreds of thousands of memories, Entertainor reviewed two different story threads from his memory that applied to this moment. He understood the special placement he had in Imuqi history as the sole repository of certain accumulated memory, but he was also capable of curiosity and self-determination.
"You say you are a scout, and in some ways you are, but you also resemble something else out of the very ancient tales."
"Please go on. I know I was created for a unique duty, but you seem to have access to knowledge that I do not."
"There are stories of an outside race, a race of horrible monsters known as humans."
"I don't like scary monster stories either," whispered Chambor.
Entertainor stiffened and began a sort of chant as he condensed the ancient stories.
"Before the time of humans, the stories relate that Imuqi were masters of the universe, whose numbers were vaster than could ever be counted, and traveled at will both on the surface above and places now unknown. Then came the humans, and other non-Imuqi too, but the humans tried to destroy the world and almost destroyed Imuq itself. That is the basis for our most basic separatist law."
They were all silent for a while, imagining a time before the pervasive paranoia and xenophobia.
"Entertainor, does this object have something to do with all this?"
Entertainor instinctually knew that a momentous occasion was upon them, and both participating and recording it proved to be emotionally overwhelming.
"On extremely rare occasions, beginning at the start of the human-caused Catastrophe, a Strategor comes at need and tastes of the Soheen. Then does all knowledge lay within and wisdom spring therefrom."
"I'm sorry Entertainor; I don't recognize the word 'Soheen'."
"It is a very ancient word, which translates to 'beekeeper'. This object is the remains of G'soheen, the last beekeeper. He was an Imuqi variant, now unused, which sent continuous swarms of tiny heliobees out into the world, to record and report back what they had seen and heard. They deposited their knowledge into Soheen's shell in the form of a densely packed viscous fluid known as honey.
Originally, any Imuqi could come to a Soheen with a question, and the Soheen would bow his head and apply his antennae to the questioner to impart the answer. Whenever a Soheen passed away, another was decanted who then ingested the honey so that the knowledge was passed on."
"But no new Soheen was decanted after G'soheen? Why not?"
"That I do not know, only that after the Catastrophe had killed so many Imuqi, including G'soheen and Adjudicator, the Strategors set up their current triad system. They are concerned because the honey is almost depleted and only a small trickle issues out the bottom."
Scout went around to the large opening, and indeed noticed a line of very small golden drops along the inside edge. He touched a finger to the sticky drop and brought it to his tongue. The taste was a combination of chocolate, orange, honey, and peppermint. He swallowed, and immediately experienced a chaotic rush of images and sounds that assailed his mind.
To Entertainor and Chambor only a few moments passed, but to Scout the experience was timeless. A few of the incomplete glimpses into worlds unknown were of humans or at least of people very similar in structure to himself. One memory, in particular, showed a glimpse of vast cities of them.
Scout shuddered and drew a deep breath and his focus returned to the present. He leaned down to look into the shell opening but saw only a few small drops that clung to the walls. He noticed several finger-sized holes towards the top and climbed to look.
"Chambor, could you please focus a little light right here?"
Chambor shaped one of his flexible bioluminescent lights to halo the spiral tip. Scout stretched and tilted his head for a better view, stuck in a forefinger, then withdrew it and clambered down. He went back to the larger opening at the base and knelt before it. Without further pause, he shimmied inside the shell hands first. His feet disappeared and the Soheen's shell rocked a bit, but Scout soon reappeared with a large gob of honey dripping off each cupped fist.
He pursed his lips, sucked the bulk of golden stickiness from each hand, and fell to the floor in epileptic convulsions. Entertainor stiffened as Scout unconsciously issued a wave of Adjudicator distress frequency from his comm organ, a call Entertainor responded to on a cellular level.
"Chambor, I must go to collect a Renovator!"
In his isolated state, Chambor only whimpered in worry.
Entertainor navigated the corridors which he had only traveled once in his youth without error. The nearest Renovator followed straight to the patient, extended the front opening of his tubular form, and oozed to enclose Scout's motionless body.
Inside Renovator's rejuvenation organ, millions of tiny tendrils took over Scout's bodily functions and kept them operating. In Scout’s mind, millions of discreet bits of information expanded in disorder and confusion, multiplying in orders of magnitude.
His genetic code contained Imuqi DNA, specifically that of an Adjudicator, which responded to the stress. For the first time in his short life, Scouts full potential of the Adjudicator design four-hundred plus I.Q. activated and began correlating, classifying and filing the raw data into usable
knowledge.
Scout's human mind was incapable of either the flow rate or the increased intelligence capacity. Pushed past human limits, his mind split, split again, then shattered into dozens of parts, each one filled with clustered alien sensations and facts. When Scout finally awoke, he was not himself, but now a newly formed aggregate personality.
Renovator registered the change in consciousness, soothed and adjusted Scout's metabolism, then gently spewed him out onto the floor. Renovator resumed his normal compact tubular shape and asked, "Adjudicator, can you stand?"
At first, the words had form but no meaning. Scout ventured into the seemingly limitless ocean of memory and waited while a cluster marked 'Imuqi Language' gently surged up and covered him like a loose garment. As the term 'stand' gathered meaning, another memory cluster flowed onto him, and he now knew how to stand and did so.
Scout looked around and studied each person in turn as his memory interface smoothed out and sped up. It did not feel like he knew them, but more like reviewing another's memories of them. As each memory chain-linked to another in his recent history, he also came to understand exactly what an Adjudicator was; namely him. From that realization, incredible amounts of logical and emotional connections formed into a solid personality.
The sad state of Imuq, compared to its former glories, became achingly evident. His super-charged brain also began to form tactics and strategies to deal with the situation. Alongside the logical stratagems, an overwhelming love for and commitment to every individual Imuqi, as well as the entire race, suffused his new identity. The emotion overflowed through his comm organ and was felt and responded to by everyone who came near
.
"Thank you, Renovator; your ministrations have brought me through the crisis. And you, Entertainor, for choosing to override tradition and orders to bring aid. And of course, thank you, Chambor, for watching over me, but mostly for being my friend."
Each recipient of praise fairly glowed with pleasure at his august notice.
"There is much to do. Entertainor, I appoint you my official historian, to record events as they advance. Renovator, please round up sufficient Transports to reposition Chambor. He is to be my official residence, and we need to relocate to Central Corridor, now."
