The need for contamination suits might have been awkward, if this had been a Terran style lab. But everyone in the Confederacy has wings, and a Vartan suit fits Tasha just fine. For security reasons, it's just her, two technicians, and the Viceroy himself. It seemed logical to bring the Vartan head here, while Neesa took the Karnor one (and the black tentacle creature) to Camp Caroban for the mages to poke at.
"We've never been able to get a specimen for study," Villem notes, as he places the head on the examination table. "We didn't even know the cloning process would work on a non-Naga, which is news in itself." He pulls down a small rotary saw, and starts to carefully cut into the skull.
"Fringe didn't mention she took both the heads. I'm glad she did in hindsight, but I'm relieved we're working on the Vartan one. I've seen enough of the inside of my head for a while," Tasha remarks as she watches the procedure begin, the hybrid woman standing off to the side where she hopes to be out of the way and still observe.
"As far as as cloning non-Naga, my clone," the reddish woman gestures towards the table, "died shortly after it left the pod, when what I think may be a cloned Harrower emerged. The two heads cou;dn't seem to control the body, and were fighting shortly before the Harrower emerged."
"Do you often find yourself of two minds?" Villem asks, as he pries the top of the skull off, and hands it to one of the technicians.. who takes it to a vat with a cap of mist atop it. Several feathers are also collected. The saw is returned, and a light source is brought to bear next as the exposed brain material is illuminated. The light is bright enough to shine through the grayish mass as well. Tasha can just barely make out a high-pitched buzz: the light probe must also have an ultrasonic emitter to allow for sonar imaging.
"I'm a hybrid in more ways than one. But, if having two heads is some sort of commentary on my personal problems, I think I'd like to keep that information and its details out of the record," Tasha notes, grinning a little beyond the clear plastic of her isolation suit's faceplate. "Fringe should have the other details, if she didn't provide a report already."
"She doesn't report to me, unfortunately," Villem notes, and uses a scalpel to cut out a small chunk of 'brain' - which is handed over to the other technician, who also takes it to the vat. The scalp piece has already been removed from it, and Tasha can that it's frozen solid. The first technician takes to another cutting device that looks a bit like a miter saw, but without any obvious teeth on the blade. There he secures the sample to a tray, and turns on the device.. which slices it into very thin slivers.
As Tasha watches the clone of herself be cut, chopped, frozen, and reduce to slivers she her muzzle wrinkles and she finds the whole experience increasingly disturbing. It wasn't that long ago she was a bloody pile of shattered bones, lacerations, and the smoking remains of body parts, and so watching her replica be reduced even farther makes her anxiety raise, ears flatten, and eventually she just turns to stare at the wall for a while. "Do you think you can gain any information from all this?"
"Of course," Villem says. "I can't say it will be useful or sensible however." Slides are prepared, and the placed under one of the big polarized light-source microscopes. "First, let's take a look at the skull," he says with a bit of zeal. While he looks through the eyepieces and adjusts focus, a small screen on the side shows what one of the lenses is seeing. So far.. it looks like a sponge.
Called to look back, Tasha turns her head towards towards the display, then tilts it. "I'm not a scientist, Villem. You'll have to interpret what you discover for me," she notes.
"It's bone," the Eeee notes. "With chloroplasts instead of blastocysts.. it's.. well, petrified wood, really. But the forms is that of bone, and probably the weight and strength." There's some more tweaking, causing things to go in and out of focus a bit. "No growth striations of course, and I didn't see any seems in the skullcap when we removed it. It was formed in place, as is. Not fast-grown from a fetus or anything like an actual clone."
The young woman nods a little. Although her education in biology has only just begun, she recognizes at least part of what the corporate leader is trying to explain. "Fringe wondered if these parts can be used as a replacement, do you think that's true from what you've seen so far?" she asks.
"We'll need to do a genetic analysis for that," Villem says, leaning back from the microscope. "It isn't exactly inert matter, so could cause an allergic rejection. I'd need a sample from you to compare it too as well. But it's definitely something to look into.. we'll have to preserve one of the eyes as a transplant potential. Most of our own biotech is designed for hybridization, after all."
"So am I, so we should get along." Tasha leans forward a little, and though still on the opposite side of the room, her keen Vartan eyesight makes this manuver less futile than it otherwise might be. Sghe studies the image a moment longer, then shakes her head. "I'm not sure I'll be much use to you here, Villem. Are you sure you wouldn't prefer to wait for Eli or Remiel?"
"It's good to have you here," Villem claims, as the slide is changed for the one of brain tissue. "If we find something really weird, we can pop your head open to compare!" he says with a big toothy smile.
"The tentacle monster will get you if you do!" Tasha warns, shaking a finger at the Eeee. The hand falls, then she shrugs and walks on over. "But it's your choice if you want me here. I could probably fight with my cloned head, if you'd also like to see how that goes. Now, anything strange about my plant-brain? I mean, besides that it's a plant copy of my brain." She then pauses, ears going askew. "Or half my brain? I'm not sure how the two heads work."
There's more focusing and adjusting of the sample. On the screen it looks the view is changing depth. Mostly it looks like a tangle of translucent branches.
Not really knowing how brains work, despite having one -- and possibly more depending on how someone looks at it -- Tasha stares at the image for a moment and then looks to Villem. "It looks like a forest," she observes.
"Hmmm," Villem ponders. "This is new. Some plants do have nerve-analogs that let them react to their environment faster. These don't look like those. More like actual animal cells, but clearly with.. ahh. I think your clone was using a sort of mushroom for a brain."
"Or to be more precise, a form of slime-mold," the Eeee clarifies. "They're very good at transferring chemicals around complicated systems, like forests. I suppose with a little tinkering you could get a workable neural network from that."
"I'm glad the others aren't here; They'd make a joke about that," Tasha notes, head shaking at the possibility of endless 'maybe we should get the mushroom brain, Tasha's is inferior' jokes from Nora. "Do you think it was actually intelligent? Or could be? Even sentient and of equal intelligence to us?"
"It has the same nerve density and complexity," Villem notes. "It could probably learn. The issue is with the production: it's a fully formed duplicate. Supposedly 'magic' can copy a person's memories, so it might have those. As for the rest.. I can't be sure. I can see it easily having the same muscle skills, if the motor cortex is identical. That would let it move about without having to learn, or duplicate skills or mannerisms. Actual sapience is more of an emergent process though. So if all of the various brain processes synchronize correctly, then it could be sapient. That isn't to say it would be the same person as the original though."
"I wonder if another spirit could over-ride this clone and impress its memories on it," the hybrid woman asks, half thinking out loud and half question.
"Given the way it was created in the first place, that may just be possible," Villem notes. "I've no idea if the body would try to conform to the new spirit, or if being a different form would cause conflict. The way this thing had two heads seems to suggest conflict can arise. If one of these were taken alive to Sinai, then I imagine all sorts of spirit experiments could be done, unless there are rules about that sort of thing."
"I think there are," Tasha notes, but then she ahrugs. "The Mages Guild would know better of, course. I'm thinking thatmaybe these could be used as an alternative form of cloning, using the Sifran's own middile-layer manipulation technologies and the phantoms it can create -- copies or living memories with bodies made from disturbances in the middle-layer of reality projection. But really, there's no way for us to know without trying it. And, as for me, well, my spirit has duality, so my clone had duality -- I think. No, tri-ality. It was trying to copy the parts of all the beings that inhabit my spirit. That's my guess."
"Well, if these things still require a spirit to animate them, then they likely aren't useful for spare parts - at least not without a mage to somehow 'graft' the recipient's spirit into the pieces," Villem theorizes. "And then there's the issue of leaving an area where magic exists. Would they still work? As far as we know, magic works on Sinai and now on Abaddon at a much lower intensity."
"That's true from what I've seen. Magic outside of Sifran space is very rare, generated from Sifran sites in other star systems and by independent constructions. But, the gap between them -- not to mention the distance between realities -- would probably travel would be impossible. Still, it might work as a temporary housing, and prevent them from spreading too far in the event of a disaster." After taking a deep breath, then exhaling, Tasha asks, "Is here anything else to see?"
"Well, I was going to cut up one of the eyeballs," Villem suggests, and looks at Tasha to gauge her reaction to that.
Tasha winces, which makes her look very scrunch-faced. "I, um, guess you could. Are you sure I'm not here to be tortured? Is the Cinfederacy upset with me, did I make you mad somehow?" She peers at the man.
"We just want to see how it works," Villem assures. "You don't need to be here for that though. Would you be willing to provide a DNA sample though, so we can check for matches?"
"Is an army of me-clones going be in my future, or me-shaped bioroids?" Asks the young woman, who peers at Villem all the more, like an eagle considering dinner.
"We don't do that," Villem notes. "If we could, we wouldn't have to use insect prosthetics after all. And from the plant-clone results.. and your own regeneration results.. it's highly unlikely we could clone you."
"It's nice to know I'm a 'special flower,'" Tasha remarks with a lopsided grin. She then holds her arm out. "Hokay, needle me. Will you need me to stick around after, or am I alright to go check on Mage Neesa's progress?"
"It will take days before we can even begin the genetic testing," Villem notes. Instead of a needle, one of the technicians produces a metal stick with a flat paddle on one end, looking like a dental too. "Open wide and say 'ahhhhh' please," the Eeee requests.
Tasha pulls off her isolation suit's top, having little concrn of it given she's alrerady been exposed to the samples, the opens her mouth. "Ahhhhhh," she goes, awkwardly.
The tech scrapes the tool along the inside of Tasha's cheek, then drops it into a bag filled with some sort of yellow compound.
Tasha stuffs the helmet under her arm, then peers at the sample. "I like that a lot bette than the needles," she notes before looking up and asking, "Anything else?"
"That should be enough for now," Villem says. "Thank you for bringing this specimen too!"
"That's what I'm here for: To be sent in to dangerous places to return with weird things and injuries!" Tasha winks, then inclines her head since her hands are full. "Let us know what you find out, and if what you discover is of any use when dealing with the Holy Seeds themselves." She then glances towards the door a moment before looking back, "Oh and I'm okay with me-shaped bioroids, just for the record. Thanks for helping us out, Villem. I'll see you when I return from Sinai."
It takes a few days of preparation (including the retrieval of the Naga Marker from Harmonia) before Tasha and her two companions can set out for the Gateway. This at least gives Mage Neesa time to get there first with the preserved Karnor head and baby Harrower clone-creations.
After days more of travel, Tasha reaches the Gateway station, with Fringe complaining that she's had enough train travel now to last a lifetime. Growing up on Abaddon, Shojo doesn't seem to have any of the anti-magic bias common to Vartans on Sinai - but then he's a master at not showing what he's thinking, due to his condition.
Once at the Camp, a Karnor (or rather, Jupani) Life Mage out on a smoke break is their first contact. "Oh, you're Neesa's friend? You do sort of look like the.. uh.. sorry, I've just rotated here. I'll go fetch her for you."
"Like the ..?" Tasha asks, her voice trailing off as the Jupani hurries off. She scratches her head a moment, rather bleary from the long ride and not quite awake to boot, then turns towards the rest of her squad and says, "That was odd. Well, any questions while we wait?"
"I imagine he was referring to the head," Shojo suggests. Fringe just looks around in confusion. "Shouldn't there be.. bubbling cauldrons and dragons and ghosts and stuff?" she asks. "It looks awfully.. normal. It's just some people in robes.. what is that?" she squeaks upon seeing a Rath'ani walking by with a sandwich. The raccoon Earth Mage just gives the Eeee a sidelong glance and doesn't miss a step. He's probably used to that from the locals.
"I'm not used to my head arriving before me," Tasha admits, her original head shaking in bemusement at it all. She then follows Fringe's look, is more confused for a moment, then silently 'oh's before waggling a hand towards to surprising figure. "That's a Rath'ani. They're, um, raccoon-people, created by the Ark scientists and terraformers in the first age after the planetfall of the Expedition Fleet. You'll see a lot of different types when we get to Sinai, but please, try not to stare. They won't understand why you're doing it on Sinai, and it could cause problems. Plus it makes you look like a tourist!"
"But I will be a tourist," Fringe notes, just as Neesa shows up.
"It's good to see you," the Karnor woman says, then notes, "But Mage Latania will be upset, because you let yourself be cloned. But we've found a few things out."
"A tourist on a mission, soldier!" Tasha pats Fringe's shoulde, grinning, then steers her towards Mage Neesa before she gets in to any more trouble.
"Hi Neesa-Neesa," the hybrid greets her friend, smiling. "It's good to see you, too! And I didn't let myself be cloned, the Holy Seed decided to clone me and then didn't ask before it stuck me with a thorn. But, what did you find out? Oh, and I'll need to speak to Mage Latania later, too."
Neesa gestures for Tasha and company to follow, and leads them to a smaller tent, where the 'head' is set on a table with an elaborate magic circle around it. "Apparently, the big news is the lack of a spirit trace," the mage notes. "That is, a spirit could not be conjured from it. So it did not have one naturally."
"I'm not sure if I should be excited or not, but I do like hearing my copied, beheaded, uh, head isn't also producing ghosts or is a zombie or something," notes the expedition leader, who gives her severed clone head a distasteful look. "It might be a good thing, too. The last time my spirit was copied we got what produced this head, and that ... Um, that I'd rather not see again."
"Well, that's the good news," Neesa notes, and leads then back outside to another tent. This has a similar setup, but on the table is the black tentacled mass. "This thing can't be analyzed at all, spirit-wise. It's as if it's invisible to the magic."
"Really?" Tasha asks, stepping closer and leaning in to study the black creature in detail. "But it was produced in this reality, of materials from this world. Shouldn't those be touched by magic? Abaddon is producing the field at a greater strength now, so, so ... Why ... " The young woman scrunches up her muzzle, twisting it this way and that as she thinks, then she snaps her taloned hand and says, "An inherent property? Or maybe the Holy Seed can replicate its actual material?"
"Oh, it's made of plant fiber," Neesa says. "Undifferentiated.. that is, no muscles or bones or anything, just solid. There's just no trace of any spirit energy having saturated it."
"So not made out of what it would be made out of. And no spirit, at least not one you can see." Glancing towards her mage friend, Tasha asks, "Is it possible it has a spirit Expedition sentients are unable to comprehend? I mean, given the Sifras would have a grasp on realities outside our own, and with vastly superior perception, could it be that what it's a clone of can't be determined by your magic because you've eitehr never encountered it or are unable to percieve it?"
"It may be more a case of the cloning process knowing there was something there but being unable to reproduce it," Neesa says. "That particular spirit element may not be a spirit at all, in the magical sense. Something the 'Sifran system' doesn't recognize."
"Maybe. If that's true, then how was it able to get this shape," the younger woman asks, gesturing at the tentacled mass and its peculiar form. "So you think it saw something magic-like, and tried to copy that, but this is the failed result? It's very, um, accurate if that's the case -- I mena it clearly isn't me or any part of me and that it has a physical form at all shows it was able to 'interpret' what was detected at least somewhat well."
"It doesn't suprise me it couldn't repoduce it, though. Harrowers are made from exotic materials, and may have additional elements foreign to our reality. Even their dimensions and physical form may be foreign," the cadet then adds, feeling the need to flesh things out a bit more.
"It could have been from your own memories," Neesa suggests. "The clone was pretty messed up, after all."
"Cloning my memories is a bad idea," Tasha notes with a grin, turning it on Neesa. "It may be that I, too, can percieve extra-universal spaces to some degree, so it may have had a problem with that interpretation. Is there anything else?"
"Nothing that was any different from the Naga versions they've examined," Neesa notes. "The Earth Mages doubt they'll ever be able to reproduce the effects, since the clones don't have any sort of reproductive elements beyond anatomy."
"That's probably for the best. We have enough to deal with on Abaddon without endless clones and a whole new species of people to worry about. M "It'll rot, since it's not wood," Neesa says. "At least, we think it will. The other clones did once they died." "That's too bad," Tasha notes, giving the tentacle-thing a sentiment-filled look before turning back, "I was hoping to keep it, maybe try and preserve it as an aid if I have to teach people about D-Level Hyperspace. Anyway, was there more or should I go see Mage Latania for questions and my execution?" "What should I tell her you want to ask her about?" Neesa asks. Turning back from the failed Harrower, Tasha answers, "Enchanted objects, specifically, objects enchanted with the same Earth Magic which was used on the Holy Seed to revive it or enchantments of similiar ability, destructive or otherwise." "I suppose she'd know something about them... she was a dean after all," Neesa says. "Wait here and I'll see if she's free.." "Tell hr I can pay. With time, I should be able to pay any fee. Make sure she's aware I'm not the same person I was before, too. I don't want her to think she's dealing with the same person she met when we arrived here the first time," Tasha insists, then she smiles. "And Neesa? Thank you." Neesa gives Tasha a pat on the shoulder, and heads out. Turning back to the little Harrower, Tasha reaches over and takes a a tentacle in each hand and flops them a few times. "Sorry," she tells it, then lets go before turning to her team. "I'm sure you have a lot of questions. To answer: I don't really know how mages do anything, but theys eem to use a lot of seemingly unrelated items to do what they do, like candles, books, symbols, hand waving and chanting to cause magic. They may even use cauldrons. Dragons, well, dragons are different. You'll be meeting one on our trip. They also wear lot of robes, apparently just because they're comfortable, which means they're smarter than our organizations. There's also different kinds of mages, but I'm still figuring out how many kinds: I know Earth, Chaos, Life, Dream, and ... I've probably forgotten a few, But they seem to specialize, like we do." "There are twelve Spheres of Magic," Latania says as she arrives, the white Cervani doe causing Fringe to squeak in alarm. "You can count them on our flag. And we're not going to add any more, either." She gives Tasha a brief glare, and asks, "What new trouble are you bringing me? Do you want me to fix your eye?" Tasha jumps a little at the senior mage's arrival, in much the same way she used to jump when her mother barged in with an angry look or when Captain Eyeshine hunted her down. "Ah, um," she stammers, then she holds her hands up in a placating gesture and insists, "No more trouble than you are willing to accept, Mage. Today I'm here are part of a greater effort -- you know that I'm now a cadet attached to the organization I and my associates founded? We're under the flag of the Abaddonian nations. Um, anywya, I wanted to ask you about the magic that caused the Holy Seed to ... To become what it is now. And if that can be replicated, or, well, if something like that can be accomplished, even if its purpose is to destroy a Seed. And, if that can be enchanted to something and used by me." Latania sighs and rolls her eyes, then puts a hand to her head as if she just came down with a headache. "What happened with the 'Holy Seed' here on Abaddon cannot be recreated. It was the result of a mage attempting a Major Ritual on her own and clearly beyond her capability. She put too much of herself into it, and the result is what we've all had to live with. There aren't any mysteries about why the Seed did what it did when it was revived from being dead." Tasha grimaces at the mage's reactiong, but presses on none-the-less. "Maybe not for you, but I'd really like to know what happened and why the Holy Seed became what it did. If you know something about the Seeds, or, if a similiar reitual can be created -- I don't need to replicate the effects of growth but I do need something that could incapacitate or kill. As a precaution. I happen to know the Holy Seeds can be effected by Sifran crystal, that their energy can be drained somehow, so maybe that's a method?" "I can't tell you anything about the Seeds, because there aren't any," Latania claims. "The Celestial Life Dome is no longer a Seed. It is a living building that takes care of its inhabitants and tries to create ambulatory 'remotes' for interacting with them, or somesuch similar bizarre reason. Exiles are often delusional, and Mage Envoy more so than most. She claimed to have been created by a living building as a way to communicate with people. That's why her name is so silly: it's her function. This notion was transferred to the plant that grew from the dead Seed, and that's why we've got vegetable people bumbling about. If it was dead, then obviously it can be killed. It's a plant. A sufficiently powerful Wither spell should suffice." "Oh," goes Tasha to the acerbic information flood. She takes a moment to process what she's told, ears splaying. She sorts what she needs from what's interesting but not directly useful while trying not to think too much on the pure hate. After a few seconds, Tasha says, "I see. Well, I'd heard she'd involved in a lot of projects, and that she wasn't welcome by the Mages Guild, but I had no idea she was involved with the Seed. Erm, well, that's fascinating anyway but, um ... Right, that spell. A Wither spell you said? Could that be made portable and used by someone like myself?" "A Master Earth Mage should be able to enchant something with the spell," Latania notes. "Abu Dhabi is lousy with Earth Mages at the moment, so if you go to the Guild Hall there I'm sure you can get what you want." The younger woman nods her head. "That's all I need to know. Thank you for your time, Mage Latania. I'll leave you to return to your work," she then offers, along with a somewhat nervous smile. "Try not to get into too much trouble, will you?" the Mage asks, sounding tired. "And come see me when you're ready to fix.." she gestures to Tasha's Vartan arm and eye. "I can't make any promises. I'm an explorer, after all. I might not return alive," Tasha replies, sounding apologetic. She then reaches up and touches the side of her face, the Vartan half, then shakes her head. "No, I think I'd prefer to keep this. It's a good reminder. My friend lost more than a hand and an eye. Besides, it reminds me of dangers I'd best not forget." "Well.. that's fine so long as nothing falls off," Latania says. "Good luck on.. whatever you're doing. I need to take a nap.." The doe looks over at the calm Shojo and the clearly terrified Fringe, then leaves without another word. "Have a nice nap, miss!" Tasha calls after the mage, hoping the extra bit of kindness will go a long way for the inevitable next time they meet. With that done, she stands there shaking her head after the mage has left, then turns to her team. "And that was Mage Latania. She's a Cervani, a deer-woman. Also Terran, I think. She's in charge of the camp." "I've always been scared of doctors," Fringe notes. "She was definitely a doctor." "She is. In fact, she was one of the doctors who saved Remy, Eli and Gabriel's lives. We paid a fortune for that, but it was worth it of course. She doesn't like me very much, but I can't really blame her. I was a different person back then." Looking towards the tent exit now, Tasha then says as she runs a hand through her hair. "Well. Time to go. Lets go say good-bye to Neesa, then we're heading for the Tower. Make sure you have your IDs and equipment all set by the time we go through -- the Tower takes a day to recharge." And with that, she heads out and on to the next step in their adventure.