Move 22 (Chapter 1.22)

[yhlee]

[GM note: This is largely a maintenance move so that folks can continue threads from Move 21 without having to dig through a lot of comments.]

For easy reference:
- Move 21 recap (thanks to zuhrovet) [wiki]
- the escape plan [wiki]
- Station Moongray Timeline [wiki]

Year 361, Month Three, Day Seventeen (Monday), ~07:90

Confrontation with the baby fox
From this thread:

Sulen moves towards Mikodez, eyes gleaming the brassy color of clock gears. "I think it's time for some truth, Mikodez."

On the Wasp, Ashari (NPC) welcomes the arrival of Sulen, who threatens Mikodez with scrying after Mikodez is recalcitrant about answering Sasha's questions about why he didn't call for help for Istradez (NPC). Iawa is on standby in case Mikodez needs to be sedated again.

The disposition of a magistrate-thief
From this thread:

“‘Belong’ would be an overstatement,” Virmad says, concealing his amusement. “But yes, we did — I was just about to check on him [Gerae].”

He inclines his head to Sulen. “I’ll see you later; good luck with the foxling.”

Then, to Alaric: “Has Gerae had any food? I did tell him before I left that I’d make sure he got something to eat.”

"It looked like someone fed him, yes," Alaric replies, "although I don't know about Fluffy. Dragon snacks might make the conversation go smoother."

Alaric has just informed Virmad as to Gerae's status, and is about to hand Gerae over to Virmad's care. Meanwhile, Yehan (NPC) comes to talk to Alaric about mothling care: she reports that the station is having the remaining mothlings delivered to the Bumblebee and they are due any moment.

Comments

Re: On the Care and Feeding of Mothlings

[slybrarian]

"Oh, and if you could just send us the formula for whatever you used to sedate these critters, that'd wonderful!" Alaric quickly shouts at their backs. "I wouldn't want some random chemicals you injected into the horrors from beyond space-time to screw up the investigation or anything!"

With a little help from Yehan he gets the canisters onto the pallet and floating a quickly and carefully as he can to the bay fitted out as a mothling habitat. Hopefully the sedation is something that's been tested before. Actually...

"Grid, send a message to Remi: would you kindly join me at the mothling bay? We may have a small problem that could use your input. Bring Crowned-with-Eyes. Ah... end transmission? Send?"

Re: On the Care and Feeding of Mothlings

[yhlee]

The Nirai with the slate half-turns, waves in aggravated acknowledgment, and does as requested; Yehan confirms that they've been sent a chemical formula that can be used with their matter printer to brew up more sedative if that's what they wanted to do.

Remi shows up shortly after Alaric and Yehan have wrangled the canisters to the bay. Crowned-with-Eyes floats after him, humming and burbling. "What's the--" Remi's eyes narrow when he sees the canisters. It doesn't take any great perception to realize that he is furious. "The mothlings. Are they alive?"

Re: On the Care and Feeding of Mothlings

[slybrarian]

"Well, there has not been an explosion of fury and murderous rage from our engine room, so I'm guessing yes, for now," Alaric says. He has the grid display the chemical they were dosed with. "They were sedated with this. I'm hoping it's something you're familiar with and know a counter-agent for."

Re: On the Care and Feeding of Mothlings

[yhlee]

Remi stares at the formula. "They must have gotten that from Vana," he says, cold and clipped and furious. "Yes, if you give them"--he brought a slate and he enters another long chemical formula on it. "This should help ease the mothlings out of their sleep, if you administer it topically."

Re: On the Care and Feeding of Mothlings

[slybrarian]

"Excellent. I'll have the pharmacopeia unit in the medbay start synthesizing a batch immediately." Alaric pulls a pair of gloves from somewhere, suitably impermeable for the application of strange medicinal substances. "And while it's spitting that out, I shall try to explain to the adult that this is temporary and we're fixing it."

Re: On the Care and Feeding of Mothlings

[yhlee]

"Your facilities do you credit," Remi says, peering with interest at the gloves. "May I observe your communications with the adult moth? I promise I can stay out of the way."

[Alaric senses that his prompt attention to the mothlings' needs has made Remi think well of him.]

Re: On the Care and Feeding of Mothlings

[slybrarian]

"Of course! The system's still largely improvised and ad hoc, but functional enough, and Sasha's made some improvements based on the moth's natural mode of communication through audio signals. Well, 'audio' is just a facet, but I don't need to tell you that." Alaric takes a minute to show Remi the interface, and what he and Sasha had managed to put together.

"I should warn you, we're basically stuck with a pictographic pidgin for most concepts outside of mathematics and physics, which it understands quite well. Looks like Sasha's been running through some of the ship's educational programs for that and some information theory..."

He constructs a cartoon of sorts, showing the mothlings being brought aboard the ship. He also adds in an audio clip of the noises Crowned by Eyes makes, starting at a very low amplitude but then growing back to normal when Remi's counteragent is added to the set of mothlings.

Re: On the Care and Feeding of Mothlings

[yhlee]

Remi makes appreciative noises concerning the communication protocol that Alaric and Sasha have worked out. "If only the Nirai researchers who made first contact with the voidmoths had been this systematic," Remi muses sadly. "I wonder, are all moths educated in math and physics, or do they specialize the way we do?"

Meanwhile, after the second time Alaric runs through the cartoon for it, the Wasp quiets to a muttering. It sends back a hopeful cartoon of a big moth playing tag with little mothlings and meatsacks (humans).

Re: On the Care and Feeding of Mothlings

[slybrarian]

"I think that they have a great deal of natural math talent, given the nature of their language and the need to navigate both real- and gate-space," Alaric replies while composing a response to the moth, indicating that play may be possible once they are safely back through the rift. "Still, that doesn't necessarily translate into conceptual knowledge. A human can throw a rock without understanding calculus. To me, the fact that it has knowledge of chemistry is more indicative of some sort of education that the math. Deriving math principles based on problems can be done intellectually, given sufficient talent and a good memory, but knowing chemical structures requires either prior experimentation or an outside source of knowledge."