Details of Investigation and Management

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40% of the way through the Demon Princes saga, Kirth Gersen confronts a big problem. He now has 10,000,000,000 SVU and so he needs a way to invest the money. He wants the investment to be done quietly, so as not to attract attention, so Gersen hires a financial expert (Jehan Addels) of New Wexford, Aloysius (6th planet of the Vega star system). Addels establishes the Braemar Investment Company and sets about the task of hiring a staff to handle all the "details of investigation and management". Gersen does not let Addels invest all of his fortune: he buys several luxurious spaceships.

Gersen still must track down and kill the remaining three Demon Princes. This is a serious challenge: he has been searching for these three criminals for many years, but they are not easy to find. Vance tells us that the residents of other worlds sometimes dismissively refer to the architecture of New Wexford as "self-conscious quainterie".

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We might also refer to Gersen's method of searching for the 3 remaining Demon Princes as an example of "quainterie". At the beginning of The Palace of Love, Gersen's preferred method seems to be sitting around the lobby of an expensive hotel reading newspapers.

Of course, Gersen probably does not want to be working too hard during this phase of his career. He is now living with Alusz, a princess from the planet Thamber. Here is Gersen's opinion of Alusz: "honorable, generous and kind". Previously, (in The Killing Machine) Vance gave us insight into Gersen's thoughts about Alusz after he had become enthralled by her charms: He had considered her features uninteresting! They were perfect: she was the most entrancing thing he had ever seen.

Kirth and Alusz

Gersen's laid-back investigative technique works. He reads in the newspaper that Demon Prince Viole Falushe has recently been on the planet Sarkovy. I've previously speculated that Gersen is either exceptionally lucky or has telepathic abilities.

Gersen quickly takes Alusz across space to Sarkovy in one of his private spaceships. Arriving on Sarkovy, a planet renowned for its poisons, Gersen hires a local guide at the rate of 50 SVU per day. Gersen gets his information about Viole Falushe from a Master Venefice, for the cost of a 425 SVU bribe.

A 50 SVU certificate from the year 1520.

Investigations of the Exode Saga

The Mind Clone Network

Rylla was recently tasked with investigating the mystery of how the MC1 sub-network of the Mind Clone Network came into existence. Rylla is now telepathically linked to Georgy and Stacy who reside inside the Hierion Domain.

When Gersen needed someone to manage his wealth, he hired Addels (an expert in finance) at an annual salary of 100,000 SVU per year with a bonus of 1,000,000 SVU every 5 years.

In the Exode Saga, Rylla has the responsibility of running an investigation of events at Observer Base, but she is a teenager making plans for attending college. Further, Rylla is a single mother with a newborn baby (Marda) to care for. Luckily, it should be possible for Rylla to complete her investigation in her "spare time" by making use of her telepathic ability; she can give orders while others, such as Colleen Liscan will do the work.

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When Gersen obtains evidence that Viole Falushe is from Earth, he arranges for Addels to buy Cosmopolis magazine. Gersen can then investigate leads on Earth by pretending to be a writer for Cosmopolis.

Rylla recently told me that when asked, Stacy admitted to knowing Lakum. I had long imagined that Lakum was similar to Ekcolir; a male who had been sent into Earth's past on a mission to insert special Asterothrope gene combinations into the gene pool of the human residents of Earth. However, apparently Lakum has the physical appearance of a human female. ♀

I was curious to know how Rylla went about her task of investigating Lakum's activity at Observer Base, so I asked her for a written report, which she provided (see below).
___________________

Status of the Lakum Investigation by Rylla Onway

"bay trout" off the barbie

I decided to ask Georgy to start a search of Observer Base for information about Lakum. Sometimes I have trouble initiating a telepathic connection to Georgy, and that was the case when I first tried to contact her. In the end, everything turned out fine because Nora returned home and we had a chance to talk before I got in touch with Georgy.

I was with Marda and Dysyn, encouraging them to try to roll over. They were laying on the floor, gazing into each others eyes. It is a little spooky. I have no evidence that they are telepathically connected, but they both seem very alert and precocious. I believe that they both understand spoken language and I know that Marda can "hear" my thoughts. Suddenly Dysyn looked at me and then her eyes flicked towards my phone. Two seconds later, my phone rang: it was Nora. "I'm almost home."

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I asked Nora, "Any luck finding the salmon?" My dad had requested salmon for the upcoming annual party that he hosts for members of his research lab.

Nora replied, "Yes, I had to go across town to the Kahawai Market, but I believe I now have everything that we will need for the party."

I heard the garage door opening. "It happened again. Just before you called, Dysyn looked at me and then at my phone."

Nora giggled, "Yes, the little rascal knows what I'm thinking." She broke our phone connection just as I went from the house into the garage.

I got a big bag of groceries out of the car. It was very hot in the garage, but Nora was cool and collected as usual. She nodded to me and hurried inside to feed Dysyn. By the time I got all the food out of the car and inside the house, I was sweating. I got all the purchases stowed in the kitchen, and found that Dysyn was asleep, still attached to Nora's breast. Marda was using our telepathic link to request that she be fed, but I knew she could wait. I picked her up and told her, "You are such a good girl to wait for me to finish my task in the kitchen." I sat down and Marda latched on to one of my second tier nipples. She was not hungry, and I was grateful that she knew not stimulate my milk producing breasts when all she wants is comfort.

Nora said, "They are both so well behaved it is scary."

I nodded in agreement. "The wonders of telepathy. I think Marda understands everything that I do... her only frustration seems to be that she can't talk to Dysyn."

"Yes, I get the same story from Dysyn." Nora popped Dysyn's mouth off of her breast. Marda laughed at the loud popping sound. Nora commented: "Well, until they learn how to talk, I'm glad that they can giggle together."

I suggested, "Maybe they will invent a new giggle language."

Nara shrugged. "I suspect that they are already communicating with their facial muscles, particularly with their eyes."

Georgy

Via our telepathic link, Marda asked me to turn in my chair so that she could look at Dysyn. She was annoyed that Dysyn had fallen asleep. I told her, "This is a good time for you to nap, then you'll be rested when Dysyn wakes up." Marda immediately closed her eyes. I told Nora, "Speaking of communication, I've been trying to contact Georgy."

"She might be sleeping."

"No, not at this time. Since the babies arrived, Georgy, Stacy and I have been synchronized on the same sleep schedule." Marda opened one of her eyes and looked at me briefly, then the eye closed again. I kissed her head and sang a little song, trying to coax her towards sleep.

When I was done singing, I asked Nora, "What do you know about tryp'At hermaphrodites?"

Nora instantly replied, "Not as much as you do."

"Tell me what you know."

Nora set Dysyn down on the sofa beside her. "She's a little furnace!"

Marda had just fallen asleep, but I was afraid to move her. With a warm baby in my lap, I was starting to sweat again. I turned on a small fan that I kept by the chair. "Ha!" I told Nora, "I've never seen you sweat." I'm certain that Nora is some sort of artificial life form.

Nora got up off the sofa and went down the hallway to the thermostat. She adjusted the temperature set point slightly lower and the air conditioning came on. She came back into the room, putting on her gardening gloves. I knew she was eager to go outside and work in the garden, but I said, "Sit down and chat with me, Nora. I really want your insight on this."

Stacy

She stood there, gazing out through the window at the sun-drenched garden in the back yard. After a long silent pause she said, "I've read what your grandfather wrote about the tryp'At. That made me feel that I had once known more about the tryp'At, but I suspect my knowledge of the tryp'At was edited out of my brain before I was allowed to stay on Earth."

I'd suggested to Nora that she take the time to read my grandfather's blog. My hope was that by thinking about alien visitors to Earth, Nora might regain some of her lost memories. "You don't have any personal memories of the tryp'At? Nothing from your past experiences as an Interventionist?"

Nora turned and looked at me, "I wish you wouldn't call me that. We're in this together and I don't remember my past life. Maybe I'm tryp'At, just like your grandfather. I don't know."

I asked, "Do you think the existence of tryp'At hermaphrodites was kept secret? Maybe as part of a campaign to have the tryp'At declared human, allowing them to remain on Earth?"

Nora turned her back to me and again looked out the window. "Kept secret from who?"

I started inventing a hypothesis. "Let's assume that when the Bimanoid Interface was upgraded, that drove all of the tryp'At out of Observer Base. That was good; it got rid of the last Earth Overseers. Everyone -particularly the Retrofuturians- assumed that they would no longer have to contend with the tryp'At. But what if that was a bogus assumption? What if there was a tryp'At who returned to Observer Base, one who can deal with the Bimanoid Interface 2.0?"

Nora shrugged and kept looking out the window.

I tried once more to open a telepathic link to Georgy, even though I knew there was little chance of establishing a connection now that Marda was asleep. Right then, I started imagining that maybe after I had last "talked" to Georgy, something I had said annoyed her and now she was refusing to make contact with me. For a minute I reconstructed the exchange we had shared during our previous telepathic link-up, but it all seemed like a perfectly perfectly routine discussion of a story from the archives of the Writers Block. I turned my thoughts back to Nora.

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My "Nora hypothesis" is that before she was first sent to Earth as an Interventionist agent, she was programmed to never talk about alien visitors who have guided the course of human civilization on Earth. I told her, "I got a new assignment from grampa. He wants me to investigate the idea there is a tryp'At hermaphrodite who has infiltrated Observer Base."

Nora looked at me over her shoulder. "I'm not sure I believe all his 'memories of the future' mumbo jumbo."

I explained, "Ya, it is hard to swallow. I've been thinking about the infites that he received from you. He may have learned about this infiltrator from your memories of the time you spent at Observer Base."

Nora shook her head. "No. My decision to give your grandfather those information nanites was made long after Maria Green edited my memories. I was worried that I might lose everything I knew, so I shared what I had, but I've had no further memory loss since then. And I know exactly what information I shared with your grandfather... there was nothing in those infites about tryp'At hermaphrodites."

I tried another angle, "Ya, more likely his memory of the future was triggered by Yōd."

Nora asked, "Memory of the future?"

I briefly told Nora about my grandfather's recent dream in which he received information about the future. "The infiltrator is named 'Lakum'. Does that name ring a bell?"

Nora pulled her phone out of her pocket and did a quick search. "There is a 2017 page on your grandfather's blog that... it just links to a new page called "Lakum". I have not seen this before."

"It is new."

"Well, your grandfather once went into the future... and returned. He must be recovering memories from that time travel trip."

"For years he has claimed to have occasional dreams about the future, but I've always thought that it is just his imagination."

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"No, he was taken to the future, just to prove to him that time travel was possible. Grean did the same thing with Azynov."

"What else do you know about Grean, Nora? Was it Grean who handed Observer Base over to the tryp'At Council?"

"I doubt if there was a 'hand-over'. When Grean departed, the tryp'At simply took over."

"Were there any hermaphrodites on the tryp'At Council?"

Dysyn made a sound. Nora went over to the sofa and made sure that Dysyn was in no danger of falling to the floor. Nora replied to my question, "That's a good question, but the tryp'At kept to themselves. One person who might know is Azynov. He was taken to Observer Base by the tryp'At. The Retrofuturians tried to get him out of detention, but then he started his mission inside the AR Simulator."

I told Nora, "I'll ask Zeta to work through Yōd on that angle. However, I suspect that Yōd had her memories sanitized in the same way that we did... Maria did not want to leave any nodes of the Mind Clone Network with information that might derail the Pact. Do you think Grean might-" Just then, Marda's arms and legs began to twitch.

I thought about Georgy and suddenly we were connected telepathically. Hi, Rylla. What's up?

Right then Dysyn also woke up. I signaled to Nora that she should go tend the garden. We put Dysyn and Marda on the floor while I continued my telechat with Georgy: Have you ever read anything about tryp'At hermaphrodites?

tryp'At Council

Georgy replied: I've made a casual search and there does not seem to be anything useful in the archives of the Writers Block about the tryp'At. However, if someone edited the index, there could be a hundred tryp'At stories that I'll never find. I can ask the remnants of the Retrofuturians about the tryp'At Council, but they are not much more than a social club.

I told Georgy: Ask Colleen. There might be information about hermaphroditic tryp'At in the ER Simulator.

You know Colleen; she'll ask where to start the search.

I suggested: Maybe the analogue of Grean in the Ekcolir Reality was told about the tryp'At.

Which is fine and good, but Grean did not hold office hours for Earthlings. Colleen could run into twenty tryp'At hermaphrodites and never know it. So could I, for that matter.

I agreed with Georgy: In fact, that is what my grandfather says. You might have already met an hermaphroditic tryp'At since you arrived at Observer Base.

Georgy asked: Even if I had, how would I know?

Colleen

Be on the lookout for anything unusual. And have Colleen do the same. Here is the kicker... this infiltrator might be able to pass in and out of the ER Simulator.

Georgy exclaimed: Are you serious? Is that even possible?

We recently got word from Yōd that individuals from the AR Simulator can have their minds instantiated in a host body here in Reality.

Okay, I'll tell Colleen.

At that point, I noticed that Marda had woken up from her nap. My telepathic link to Georgy was broken.

The next day, dad came home early and started slow cooking the salmon on the barbie. Georgy connected us via our telepathic linkage while I was making a pizza for the lab party. Georgy was bubbling with information: Guess what? Stacy says that Lakum was here at Observer Base before I was!

I asked: He's there now?

Georgy replied: Let's link Stacy in.

We created a three-way connection and I asked Stacy: Where is Lakum?

Lakum

Stacy said: I'm not sure. She's a strange one.

I complained: That tells me nothing. Did you say "she"?

I could tell that Stacy was laughing. If you saw her, you'd call her a "she". However, Georgy has been filling my head with talk of hermaphrodites.

So, you can't confirm if Lakum is a hermaphrodite?

No. And I have not seen her for several months.

How did you meet her?

I'd assumed that she's one of the Retrofuturians. I've only ever seen her with other Retrofuturians, at their gatherings.

Georgy added: Based on the description of Lakum provided by Stacy, both Colleen and I feel like we all may have seen Lakum around the City. Thinking back, I have a vague memory but I did not really pay attention to her. We'll all be more diligent now. I'm on my way to Anatole's... you can usually find some Retrofuturians hanging out down there.

Stacy had one more tidbit to share: Colleen is checking the interface of the ER Simulator. She thinks there is something screwy about the interface. She went off muttering about hackers.

Okay, keep me posted. We broke the connection. Before I could even tell Nora what I'd heard from Observer Base, the crew from the lab began arriving for the party.

The next day I was discussing with Nora the idea that it may have been Lakum who implanted embryos inside Georgy and Stacy. Then I got another 'call' from Stacy. Hi, Rylla. How's the heat?

Stacy seems to delight in hearing how hot it can get during the summer. At Observer Base, the temperature never changes. I gave Stacy a quick weather summary and then asked: Anything new on Lakum?

tryp'At

Stacy explained: The Retrofuturians all know Lakum. They say she has been around town for years, but they agree that she is a strange case. She is gone for months at a time, then she suddenly shows up again. More importantly, Colleen thinks she has solved the mystery of Lakum's comings and goings. Apparently someone has been going in and out of the ER Simulator, just as you suggested. They tried to conceal the records of their movements, but Colleen was able to resurrect the hidden data.

Sneaking around and not telling anyone. I did not want to tell Stacy the idea that Lakum might be the 'father" of her child. I asked: What could Lakum be hiding?

Colleen is also curious. She's now carefully monitoring the ER Simulator. If Lakum returns to Reality, we'll know it. It should be interesting to hear what Lakum has to say for herself.

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Okay. Keep me in the loop.

I'm now waiting to hear back from Observer Base with more information about Lakum.

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The story, above, is Part 3 of "The Lakum Intervention". To continue to Part 4, click the link, below.

Next: Lakum in Alastor Cluster

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