Into the Loliverse (episode III) : Taboos (Act I)

by Aunt molly

Goldie and Abraham had been assigned to upgrade the sensors and the manual override for the mules. The small ships would be sent into lower orbit to investigate the planet.

Goldie was installing a camera on one of the mules, " You know its not like I really thought Jupiter was my father. I understand that it is a gas giant."

"But you felt a father's love."

"Yes, well, I wouldn't know what a father's love would be like. My mothers divorced when I was a short hair."

"Where is she now?"

"She joined a frontier habitat around Titan."

"Sounds daring."

"Not as daring as you'd think. The delfs had been around Saturn since the twenty-third century. They kept saying ' No its not ready yet. Its not safe yet.'. It was like they were being protective."

"Maybe they were. Like their feeble elderly parents."

Goldie chuckled at the idea.

When the Mission went to reserve the chapel they'd found it was taken for a wedding and a "last cut" ceremony. A kind of coming of age ritual. Still, having to wait an extra week could work to their advantage.

"Goldie, do you know any lolis that like to sing?"

"Are you kidding? Lots of lolis love to sing, Not all of them can, but that doesn't stop them from trying."

"We are going to start a choir. Tell them they don't need to believe anything they aren't ready to."

The choir started with three or four loli, then a few of the curious lured by the sound of singing. The world spread, and they grew to six. They asked questions about the lyrics and the scripture they came from. Questions that were answered honestly and without judgment. Even the most awkward and uncomfortable passages in the Old Testament.

By the end of the first week a few loli were asking about conversion.

***

Ruth sat on a pillow in Dr. Cyan's office. She wasn't dressed in the rust red uniform of the mechanics, but instead a blue dress with a long skirt and a simple white bonnet. She pulled her knees up to her chest and looked up at the diminutive therapist.

Long yellow-green hair wrapped in a tight professional looking bun, she wore the blue uniform of the resolvers, except she wore a gold star on her chest.

Cyan looked down at Ruth, "What would you like to talk about?"

"I am not here by choice."

"Dr. Umber says you have contracted an IUG. How do you feel about that?"

"You make it sound like a disease."

"Swelling and tenderness in the breasts, aching back, nausea, rapid weight gain, mood swings, and finally excruciating pain. That does sound a lot like a disease to me."

"I'm pregnant. This used to be commonplace."

"So were head lice. Would you like to bring them back too?"

"This isn't the same thing.. ", there was a pause, "We're not breeders!", Ruth looked down at the floor, "Sorry about my language."

"Why would we think you were ", Cyan paused, "Why would we use such a word to describe you?"

"Its not as if we haven't heard it before. Whether behind our backs, or to our faces. Anyone who reproduces in-utero, or was produced that way, is the b-word by default."

"Why weren't you and your husband cleansed after birth?"

"You mean 'sterilized' don't you?"

"In many municipalities, not having your child *cleansed* is tantamount to medical neglect."

"Not on Io, they allow for an exemption on religious grounds

"It must be hard to find a doctor that still knows how to handle an evacuation."

"You mean a 'birth'?"

"Who else in the Mission is uncleansed?"

"All of the younger members of the Mission, including my brother, my sister in law, my nieces and nephews, and, God willing, my own child."

"If you wished to terminate your IUG, what sanctions would you face?"

"None. Its my choice."

"Are you lying to me?"

Ruth looked Cyan in the eye, "You're a psychiatrist, can't you tell?"

Cyan tapped her finger on the arm rest, "If my appearance makes it difficult to talk about adult subjects, Nurse Ikeda has psychiatric training."

"Its not your appearance. Its the fact that you assume I'm a victim."

"You are very young for parenting. Most people don't start families until they are thirty-five."

Ruth looked away from those big yellow-green eyes. She fidgeted with the skirt of her dress. "We use a form of birth control called a 'condom', its a latex balloon that goes over the penis. Used correctly its very effective. We wanted children, we are just going to have them sooner."

Cyan sat stock still. Her large eyes blinked twice before she spoke again, "An *unplanned* IUG?"

"It was our wedding night, and we were excited, and we kind of forgot."

"You said that you would not face sanctions if you terminated. Why haven't you?"

"I want this baby."

"Since you are in-utero, your *IUG* will only get nine months instead of the twelve it deserves."

"Children shouldn't be grown in a box. Children should be decided by the parents, I should not need the permission of some agency responsible to no one."

"During the time of the Collapse, half of the gestations were unplanned. If more people had planned their families there might not have been a Collapse."

"That was because of lack of access to birth control because of poverty and con-"

"Conservative religious sects, such as yours."

"Your daughter wants to join us."

Cyan took a deep breath, releasing her words in a single breath, "I know. She is a child grown in a box. If she has children they will be grown in a box too. Its simply impossible for us to reproduce in the 'natural' way. Why would you accept her as a convert?"

"We accept that some people have disabilities. That was why X-utero was created, to help those with disabilities. You wouldn't expect everyone to wear a low gravs harness, would you?"

"So how did you explain your beliefs to my daughter and her friends?"

Ruth stared down at her skirt.

"I see, and when do you plan to tell them? A few of them, my daughter included, plan to be baptized tomorrow. No matter what you think of it, your practice is controversial to everyone else. Don't you think they deserve to know what they are getting into?"

Ruth hung her head, "We will. We'll tell them all. Tonight."

***

Sable sent a subvocal to Eliza, <<How does she fly?>>

The "she" was a three meter long dirigible covered in flexible PVCs, floating far above Sable and Silvia in the habitat garden. It seemed to orbit the light tube running through the center of the habitat's rotation. An oddly primitive looking contraption given the advanced technology all around it.

Silvia stood in the brown robes and cap of the Habitat learner mentors. Her long silver hair fell mostly loose and her large silver eyes sparkled in the faux sunlight, " You made a wonderful probe. It is really nice. I am sure it will do very well down on the planet.""

"Its mostly just the Titan probe with a few adjustments taking into account the warmer climate, the different atmosphere.", <<Alright Eliza take her down near us.>>

"Well, I think it will do very well. Its exciting, exploring a brand new planet with life. A large mysterious biosphere. Of course it would be nice if we had a proper astrobiologist. You know I checked none of the humans, not even in the Mission is an astrobiologist. So they have me. I will do my very best."

The blimp floated towards the two loli's. Others visiting the park gazed upwards towards the strange device, though their spex told them exactly what it was intended for as soon as they looked at it. It floated down to about one meter above the ground, swerving around the small trees and over bushes.

Up this close, Sable could make out the box which hung under the blimp, containing the sensors and sampling equipment. "Did we ever name that planet?"

"Franklin's Planet. After Roseland Franklin, one of the co discoverers of the structure of DNA. She didn't get the Nobel because she died and they wouldn't hand it out posthumously. Still I think she was robbed.

So now, she has a planet. Though I hear that the teamsters are already calling it 'Frankie'."

Eliza showed the precision of her control by bopping a loli named Strawberry on the nose. The dirigible's front end was round and had no chance of poking anyone's eyes out. Though Strawberry seemed annoyed, she simply walked away.

The probe was close enough for its microphones to hear Sable speak out loud, so she did, "Stop showing off Eliza."

<< To answer your first question, it handles great.>>, Eliza was back in the computer room controlling the probe with her mind. Her capacity to interface with computers made her best suited for piloting the probe in real time.

" Eliza, could you try out the cunits? We want to make sure they work before you go down.", Silvia stood closer to Sable, " You know, I will be getting the first images from a low orbit scan of Frankie. I thought maybe later, you could come to my place and I could make dinner."

Sable wasn't sure but she thought Silvia was batting her eyes at her.

The box opened up and cunits, small centimeter sized cube-shaped robots, were dropped in a pile on the ground. On each face of the cube their was a small opening and a small tentacle like appendage. At first they crawled about like small spiders, attaching together at random, forming clumps and lines, arches and circles. Then, the smaller structures collected into larger structures until soon a roughly human like shape was formed.

Vaguely human-female in shape, covered in small hair-like structures.

The humanoid took two steps and toppled to the ground. After some struggling it pushed itself up and tried again, <<What the shrag is going on? Why can't I walk?>>

Silvia brushed back and errant strand of hair, "Bipedal movement is very unstable. In your own body you do it without thinking, but the cunits have never dealt with it before. Just keep practicing. Eventually the cunits will pick up the basics of bipedal movement and you can walk around without thinking, like in your own body."

<< Sable said she'd been chased by cunit tripods when the hostile delf tried to take over. They didn't lurch around like this.>>

"Tripods are more stable. Have you ever seen a two legged stool? It makes me wonder why I never see a three legged creature. Well, I saw a three legged dog once, he seemed to move around just fine."

Eliza's cunit surrogate moved like an infant, unsure of its first steps,<<This is undignified.>>

"Its better to figure it out now than to have to figure it out down on the planet, where something might go wrong. I mean what if a predator attacks you and you need to run? Or you need to balance on a precarious surface.?"

Sable turned to Silvia, "If she dies on the surface..."

"No, no. That only happens in the vids, if her cunit body is swallowed, crushed, spindled or mutilated, she will wake up back on Hab Six. She might be a little disoriented. I remember one time I was doing a telaremote through an ant colony and a predator ate my robot. I watched as I went through an anteater's digestive tract. Freaky stuff."

Eliza's surrogate body toddled along a few steps then turned around and walked back.

Silvia leaned close to Sable, " Sable, you didn't answer me."

Eliza stumbled and fell again, she had to crawl a few meters befor regaining her feet..

Sable scratched her head, "I don't know. I mean I'm not a scientist, I'm just a girl with a tool belt. I probably wouldn't understand half of it."

"I explain science to eight year olds. You will do fine. All you really need is your curiosity and your willingness to experiment."

"Alright, but I am going to ask some really stupid questions. I mean my learner days are long past me."

"Really? I feel like my learner days are just beginning. I mean a literal whole new world. Well, new to me. I know this planet has been here for billions of years. The life forms have been there for a long long time too."

"How do you know that?"

"Easy. Methane and nitrogen levels in the atmosphere. Nitrogen is released in small amounts as a result of protein synthesis. The more N2 the longer life has been around. Methane is a product of anaerobic life."

When Eliza spied a couple of shorthairs, she raised her arms menacingly, they stuck their tongues out at her.

"Oh crud, I forgot. I have kind of become the guardian of a human boy. You know Todd?"

Silvia's eyes softened, "He's a sweetheart. He's the best in his age group. You took him in? Thats so sweet. He was doing a project on pre-collapse marine invertebrates that looks very sophisticated. Well, for a ten year old."

"Yeah, well his parents are all on the other side. He's smart for his age, but I wouldn't feel comfortable having him come home to an empty apartment."

Silvia studied her feet, "Well I guess you could take him along, he'd probably like it."

<<What? No! You two need alone time, I will hang out with him for the night.>>

Sable scratched her head, " I would have my niece Ink watch him, but Ink has a new girlfriend and they are of an age they might need some privacy."

Eliza's surrogate waved a simulated hand, << I could watch him.>>

"My daughter Ashley is going to be in DBC doing some detailed mapping of the system."

Eliza's surrogate waved both hands,<<*I* could watch him.>>

"Emerald is going to be doing a side project of her own, she's kind of secretive about it."

Eliza's surrogate jumped up and down, and tried to speak aloud by vibrating the small hair like tentacles on the cunits, "I could watch him! Wow, I really sound synthetic. Like one of those cheesy robots from the old movies. Terminate! Terminate! Resistance is futile foolish human!"

Silvia turned to the cunit humanoid and back to Sable, "I think Eliza's available. She seems very eager."

"Eliza is a nice lady, but she isn't used to responsibility."

Eliza crossed mechanical arms, "What makes you think I'm not responsible?"

"You told Todd you'd look out for him, and now I've become his guardian."

"I told him he could hang out with me, I didn't say I would be his mom. Alright, I see your point too. I should have stepped up anyway. I am ready to learn to be responsible."

"I guess you can't do too much damage in one night. You have him for the whole night, you can't just change your mind as soon as you get bored."

"Of course not! I am an adult. I can handle this."

***

Michael had gotten a job in the "farm" sector. More like a biology lab, or some sort of factory than any kind of farm recognizable by a human of earlier eras. Vegetable matter printed out in long sheets, cut into slices and distributed to the dining halls and restaurants of the habitat.

Attempts to do something similar with meat ended with a flavorless gelatinous glop. Worse, unlike plants, animals are dependant upon symbiotic bacteria and complex immune systems for their survival. Early attempts to grow meet ran into problems with infection.

He was about to enter the human sector, when he ran into Ruth, his wife. She seemed distressed.

She told him all about what had happened in therapy with Cyan,. "I don't agree with everything Cyan said. Still, she is right, we need to be honest with them."

There had been times, several times, when they had considered it, as a group. There were a few times when they had actually tried it. There had been a few times when they had been "outted" by someone on the outside. It never went well.

"Will it go any better if they find out on their own? Our hostesses have been so open, so welcoming. Maybe the problem is that we've always run away."

Michael walked through the human sector of Habitat 6. Large doors that led to a single large storeroom were repurposed into smaller apartment units for the thirty-eight "normal" humans that lived there. They'd remembered the chaos as several large containers had to be moved to other areas.

The low gravity humans needed a housing unit closer to the center of rotation.

Men and women greeted him as he passed. Children, real children, ran past him as he moved towards the Mission area of the improvised village.

Singing could be heard, like a chorus of children. Though once he entered his mother's apartment the rainbow colors of hair and the large eyes marked them as belonging to the race of their hosts.

Reverend Case, Michael's mother, was an old woman with deep brown skin, a gaunt frame that seemed only to be held together by the minister's determination.

The divider between her room and Abraham's had been removed to give room for the choir of lolis. The meager furniture had been moved aside to make room for their choir.

Do not, then, stand idly waiting, for some greater work to do; Fortune is a lazy goddess, she will never come to you. Go and toil in any vineyard, do not fear to do or dare, If you want a field of labor, you can find it anywhere.

Their voices trailed off, The reverend raised her hands, "Good, good, you're getting better."

Michael whispered to his mother, "Better than my father-in law anyway."

Goldie shouted, "Hey - I like Abraham!"

Case chuckled to herself, "They have acute hearing."

Autumn took her baby Gertrude from her wife and gently patted the newborn's back, "Will we be Christians tomorrow?"

"You are Christians now if that is what you feel in your heart, just as you were Rainbow's wife the moment you two decided to share your lives together. The baptism just makes your decision public knowledge."

Cream's white braided hair contrasted sharply with caramel colored skin, " I don't know, there are parts of scripture I take exception to. Especially in the old testament, too much was resolved by violence. Where does the peace and love we talk about come from if its born out of violence, deception and intolerance?"

Rust was an older loli, her wrinkled skin on her child-like face made her look like she'd been struck by some horrible malady. In reality her eighty years of life she had earned every wrinkle, "You don't understand that the world they lived in was a dark and violent place. You trusted your tribe and no one else. They were also a small nation surrounded by superpowers like Babylon and Egypt. That could make you a bit paranoid."

Coral combed her long pinkish hair, "I think the mistake is to consider the Bible to be history, it is better viewed as literature. The Old Testament contains stories about sex, violence, betrayal, miracles, and wars is because these are elements of a dramatic tradition."

Goldie scowled, "Are you saying the Bible is fake?"

"Saying the Bible stories aren't true doesn't mean they don't have truth in them. I am a literature mentor specifically because I believe stories to be very important. They provide a culture with a common frame of reference. The very fact that they've survived for so long is a testament to how compelling they are."

Reverend Case waved her hands again, "Girls, I need to put the wall back up, Abraham will be home soon. I will see you all at service at ten?"

The lolis said their good-byes and when the last left, Michael spoke his peace, " Have you seen the others?"

"The ankh wearers?"

"They call themselves the 'Positivists'."

"Competition can be healthy in religion as in business. So long as it stays civil."

Ruth leaned in close as if someone might hear, "We need to tell them, about, about us. Dr Umber and Dr. Cyan already know. The rest will figure out soon enough."

Michael squeezed his wife's hand, "I'll talk to Rainbow and Autumn."

Reverend Case hung her head. Things were going so well. Still, this was bound to happen. It always did sooner or later, "I will talk to Rust, one old lady to another. I will see if Rachel is willing to sit with Cream."

Ruth was holding Michael's hand, "I will talk to Goldie."

***

The machine shop sector was nearly always noisy, plenty of grinding noises and splurches, and "squish-squish" and even a burst of music from the "garment district" where loli might put on impromptu fashion shows with the clothes they'd just fabbed.

Right now the two of them had serious business here.

The fab slowly, layer by layer built the second of the prototype weapons. A rifle sized down for a loli with twin stocks and a large, long bottle shaped container on top. There was lots of glittery side paneling, and was that second stock really necessary?

Then again, it was director Gray's baby. and this was a demonstration model, it needed to look pretty.

"Cherry wonders, did Emerald ever use a real weapon?"

"Ah couple times in target practice. Ah told yah, back on Earth.", when Emerald was little, alright *littler*, she had dreamed of joining the Texas Rangers. There was the small catch of the height requirement.

She accepted that it was hard to get a crook to quake in his boots at the sight of a loli. So she didn't feel bitter. However, a friendly cop did point her in the direction of a private security agency that valued "workplace diversity".

"Did Emerald like it? Did Emerald carry a weapon?"

"Most ah what we did didn't involve shootin' folks. We did checks fer insurance companies. We looked fer' missin' persons, checked up on cheatin' spouses. ", Emerald began to chuckle, "Ah remember one time ah was casin this woman who was supposed to be cheatin' on her husband No one ever suspects the little girl on her scooter to be a spook.

Later on ah caught this feller from a competin' agency followin' mah client. Apparently each thought the other was cheatin. What they needed was couple's counselin. We still charged them full price though."

"So Emerald never used a weapon on someone?"

Emerald sighed, "One time. Its complicated. Ah only tol' mah wife this story. There was this man, a weapons smuggler who in his free time liked to pray on little girls. Guess who got tah' go in undercover?

He was supposed to get caught as soon as he snatched me, but somethin' went wrong. It wasn't our guy that snatched me, but some hired thug. Ah stuck it out, let him take me to the guy's hideout. He had a dungeon with three other girls, right near were he stored his merchandise.

Ah had a transmitter implanted in mah skull, to activate it all ah had to do was think three red triangles rotating counter-clockwise The cavalry came in, so mah guy came runnin' downstairs hopin' to use us as hostages, but he got careless, ah ducked under him an grabbed one of his guns. A G-17a if ah remember. It didn't have the identifier sensor on the trigger so anyone could use it.

He thought ah was just an ordinary girl so he reached fer his weapon ah pulled mah trigger."

"Emerald saved the day! Did that feel good?"

"Honestly Cherry, ah don't know what ah felt."

A high pitched bell chime signaled the fab was done with its work, the faux glass case opened and Cherry took the newly made weapon down. It was a bit heavy for her. She gently placed it into an open carry case. She then shut and locked it.

A second weapon sat locked in a second case. Cherry tried to lift both cases as once, but seemed to struggle.

Emerald sighed, "Let me take one..", without asking Emerald snatched a case from her partner. "This is a might heavy for us, I'm thinkin' Gray could look intah makin' a lighter version maybe."

"Cherry will ask her after the demonstration."

***

Sable walked with Silvia to Griffon Hall, one of the single loli residence halls. The apartment was essentially just the bedroom. The lavatory and kitchen were communal. On a shelf was a fabbed model of the DNA double helix.

There were also "virtual" decorations, things that could only be seen with spex, Since they didn't exist physically, it was very easy to redecorate.

There was a hologram of the Europan "flea", a small crustacean-like organism about a millimeter long. The largest, most complex, non-Earth organism to be known before the big move. Life on Europa was sparse confined to volcanic vents deep below Europa's ice.

There was a hologram of the Beijing ecosphere. A colossal Three kilometer sphere, its volume larger than the whole of Habitat-6. It was seeded with a set of exotic organisms using arsenic (instead of phosphorous) in their genetic material. They were given an entirely different set of nucleotide "letters", in an attempt to create an alien ecosystem on Earth.

Other than the bed, there weren't any places to sit. Sable took a deep breath and let it out shuddering. She rubbed her own arms. She hadn't been in a single loli's apartment since she and Blanch had dated.

Well, she had been conned into watching Titan Tentacle Monster VI with Azure and Goldie about a year before. Sable didn't count that.

Sable, you're making a big deal out of nothing.

I should have asked her to come to my place, its roomier. I could have cooked. I can cook, can't I?

Silvia sat next to Sable,"Is something wrong? You look uncomfortable. You've known me since I was a short hair, why would you be uncomfortable? Wait, I have something that might help you relax."

Sable shook her head, "No I'm fine. So have you seen any of the images yet?"

"A few, I am afraid I couldn't wait. Either the cameras you installed on the mule were very powerful or the teamsters flew a lot lower than was safe.", Silvia reached into a cabinet and pulled out two cups. She handed one to Sable, "Or maybe it was both. Anyway, I am not going to give away what I saw. I am sure that by now folks all over the habitat are watching."

"Goldie and Abraham installed them. I wouldn't put it past the teamsters to push the limits."

Silvia reached under her bed and pulled out a small pitcher. She popped open the top and poured a dark red liquid from it into Sable's cup and then some into her own.

Sable smelled it, it did not smell like fruit juice, "Is this?"

"We grow grapes, or grape meat anyway. We use yeast to make bread. The rest is basic chemistry."

"So *you're* making the hooch?"

"This is wine, not hooch. Are you going to tell on me? I promise I do not drink and teach."

"Now we're both criminals.", Sable took a sip and winced.

Silvia sat down next to her, "Yes, well, its still the best wine in the system."

The only time Sable had alcohol before was on her honeymoon down on Io's surface. Sable and Blanch had gone to Lake Loki. Well, they went to a hotel with a good view of Lake Loki. It *was* their honeymoon.

When they came back they applied to become parents. Ashley was gestated about a month before Silvia.

They opened the image file and began to sort through the first detailed images of Planet Franklin's surface.

***

It was as they walked into the residential section, Emerald could not help but notice a veritable forest of gawkers. The voices of debating lolis. That by itself was average enough. There were no shortage of strongly held opinions among the loli, so long as it stayed civilized,

"Pardon, mah partner and I need ta get through."

The first voice Emerald heard was Amber's, "Roman pagan women had access to fertility control, it had female gods it was obviously more gender equitable. As soon as the Christians took over the empire collapsed. Christianity marked the end of Pax Romana."

The crowd started to part, and Emerald heard was the literature mentor Coral, "The 'fertility' control often meant the culling of females. Women could not enter careers, they had few if any rights. Also, how do you know it isn't the decline of Rome that caused people to turn to Christianity?"

"I am the historian and the anthropologist, that's how I know."

Emerald pushed through the crowd just as Goldie spoke, "Saying you're an historian doesn't make you right."

It was Goldie and the newly converted "Christian " lolis, verses Amber and her "positivists", the former wearing newly fabbed crosses and the latter ankhs.

"I am not the believer, I am the one who comes with the unbiased eyes of a social scientist. I am an expert on human cultures. It is my expert opinion that Christianity has a negative effect on any culture it touches. Negative affects mean negative energy."

"What about Martin Luther King Junior? Mother Theresa of Calcutta? Pope Mary II? The Salvation Army? The Red Cross?"

"What about the Crusades? The Spanish Inquisition? The Church of the Abundant Womb? Who was it that fought tooth and nail against providing access to birth control. Not *cleansing*, just simple access? Around the time of the collapse the Holy Church and the magacorps were basically indistinguishable!

Lets not forget that the Constructionists were Christians!"

"The Constructionists were not Christians, they saw religion as another tool of manipulation."

"So you *admit* - Christianity is a tool for manipulation!"

"That's not what I said you nut!"

Emerald and Cherry stepped between the two groups, "Is there somethin' here that needs to be resolved?"

Amber turned to emerald, "Oh I forgot, Goldie is Dr. Cyan's daughter. Call up some thugs to silence the truth?"

"Mah partner an' I just happen to be walkin' by. Now again, is there somethin' here that needs to be resolved?"

Goldie shook her head, "No, just a discussion about belief, it got a little heated, I am willing to let it slide. We were friends not that long ago. Actually I would still like to be friends. Besides, isn't anger a form of negative energy?", Goldie smiled and extended her hand.

Amber did not take it, "I don't know why I am angry at her. She is a victim just like the other brainwashed lolis. When you are ready to face the truth I will help you put the pieces of your spirit back together again."

Amber walked away, her followers trailing behind.

Rainbow shook her head, "For someone that doesn't like negativity, that was one big 'shrag you'."

Goldie smiled, "She just needs to get used to the idea. I am sure in no time we will build an interfaith dialogue. Hey Emerald, what's in the cases?"

Cherry hefted hers, "A surprise for the bad guys."

Autumn tended a fussing Gertrude, "What is it? I'm sure its uber-Wiccan."

"Cherry cannot tell - its a secret."

The loli did not like secrets, but they did like surprises.

Emerald waved her hands in the air, "Only fer a minute or two. Ah just want to reveal it to everyone at once, so we can all decide as a society. We're gonna do a demonstration in the square."

***

Ruth moved through the loli residential area having to move in a crouch. It was a bit of a pain. Her spex told her she was moving towards the town square. A small blinking green arrow was projected into her field of vision pointing to where Goldie was standing.

She tried to send a subvocal to Goldie, <<I need to talk to you in private.>>

<<Hey Ruth! You missed practice, I only missed a couple notes this time. Hey I heard you were doing counseling with my mom. She's really easy to talk to isn't she?>>

<< Yes, she is. She asked me to tell you something, but I don't want to do it over subvocal.>>,

<< Yeah, Yeah, you can tell me later. Azure wants to show off some cop stuff.>>

***

Sable and Silvia put their cups aside and lay on the bed. Staring out into images collected from one of the mules. The wine was making Sable light headed.

While watching the images, Sable was given readings from the planet, atmosphere content - nitrogen, methane, hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide, water vapor, and an atmospheric pressure about 1.2 atmospheres. Gravity, 1.1 relative to Earth sea level.

A seismically active planet, tugged and pulled by its three moons. Volcanic ash helped keep the planet cool enough for life. A highly saline sulfuric acid ocean covering one third of the planet's surface. A soil polluted with concentrations of lead and salt.

"Sable, what is the minimum you would need for a radio transmitter? I mean, nothing too fancy. Just the absolute bare minimum to send like Morse code or something."

"Uh, a power source, a conductor and a few resistors. It would have been easy enough to look up on spex."

"How much power would it take?"

"I don't know, it depends upon how strong a signal you want."

This was not a slide show, an image of the planet from orbit was showed and Sable could pick from the areas scanned so far. Her experience was linked with Silvia's so the two would be certain to be looking at the same footage.

"Well Ashley says that there are weak analogue radio signals from the surface, but we don't see any signs of cities or industry."

"Could it be natural? I know stars send out radio signals. I wonder could an animal?"

"Well electric fishes would send signals through water. Sharks did not use electricity, but they could pick it up in other animals. The slight discharge when muscles contract."

"Wait? There were animals on Earth that generated electricity?"

"Oh yes, the electric eel were the most powerful. They would store electricity in their muscles and could release it in a burst to stun predators. We lost a lot of amazing animals in the years leading up to the collapse.

I've never heard of a land animal using electricity that way. So far as I know it isn't impossible. It just isn't practical since electricity doesn't travel well through air."

Zooming in on an image Sable could see what looked to be a forest.

"Is that a tree?"

Silvia magnified her image, "Well, it is an organism that resembles a plant. Still it more closely resembles a fern. A fern about four meters tall. Like plants during Earth's carboniferous period."

Sable checked "carboniferous" on the spex. Giant ferns, giant bugs.

A fern four meters tall, glistening with an almost metallic sheen. The leaves were purple and broad and tightly packed, forming a canopy almost like an umbrella. Only the occasional gust of wind betrayed their separateness.

There was a forest of these fern-like organisms. Sable had seen images of forests on Earth, from both before and after the collapse. This seemed almost like a tree farm the distance between the plants was fairly regular.

Sable was able to make the image pass back and forth along the forest and explore out to the limits of what the mule had scanned. No, there were smaller plants and some kind of plant like parasites attached to the larger organisms. Sable assumed any farmer would remove them. An abandoned garden? The remnants of some planet wide catastrophe that nature was just beginning to recover from?

"I don't see any animals."

"There is no ozone layer, it might just be safer to be nocturnal. Or there may not even be animals as we understand them. Or they could be hiding in the shade of the trees. Or burrowing underground. What I don't understand is, if their is no oxygen, what are these things running on?"

"Why are they purple?"

"That's no big deal. There are still purple photosynthesizes on Earth. All the ones I am aware of live in anaerobic conditions. Many of them prefer environments with high sulfur content, but they don't produce enough energy to support a complex life form. I mean purple bacteria can form blooms, but its not really the same thing."

"Do any of them make electricity?"

***

The crowd gathered around the town square, an open space in the residential area used for speeches, live theater, debates, concerts, and demonstrations like Cherry and Emerald were having.

They patched into the subvocal system to make a general broadcast to all in Emerald's field of vision, those who did not want to listen could, of course, simply decline.

"Hello everyloli. Oh ah see a few human friends out there too. So lets say 'residents of Habitat-6 '.

As we all know, we have opened our home to human residents an fer the most part they have proved valuable members of our society. Still, every once in a very great while a human will act in a manner dangerous either to themselves or those around them."

Cherry turned around "Emerald - Cherry sees some humans being dangerous to both themselves and those around them!"

Slurred drunken singing could be heard as the crowd parted to make way for a pair of middle aged humans, stumbling and shambling down the walkway.

"Well Cherry, we should probably try to reason with them.

Hello human citizens, it seems y'all got into the Hab-6 hooch. Now normally that comes with a fine. I'll let y'all off with a warning if you go back to yer rooms an sleep it off."

"You little kids aren't the boss of us! We'll do what we want, when we want, and you can't do a thing to stop us!"

Cherry's face was a mask of exaggerated panic, "The human is right. Loli are too small to restrain a human. Cherry knows, Cherry tried!"

"Don't worry Cherry, we have somethin' that we can use to incapacitate them, without hurting them.", Cherry and Emerald reached for their cases and pulled out the new devices, "Humans, you have one last chance to be reasonable."

"Oh go shrag yourselves, you and your cute little toy guns."

Aiming carefully, Emerald and Cherry let loose a volley of little white globs. On contact they splattered then expanded, sticking arms and legs together. The fluid hardened into a foam of a rubbery texture, it became hard for them to move.

A second volley encased their legs. In the midst of struggling the humans toppled over.

"Are y'all tryin' to break free?"

A balding human called out, "Yeah, we're trying. This stuff is sticky. ", the humans pulled and struggled with the rubbery foam but could not break free.

Emerald turned to the audience, "Now, the foam has enough air in it that even if I were to get it on their mouth, they would still be able to breath."

The balding human's partner, somewhat more obese called out to Emerald, " If its alright could you set us free now?"

"So lets say Clyde an' Ned here learned their lesson. Well, there is an attachment on this rifle, you walk up to them an' spray the foam down with this enzyme.", a light mist is sprayed over the men and the foam began to deflate.

Soon they are able to tear themselves free of the substance. The lolis started to chatter amongst themselves.

Emerald and Cherry put their rifles back in their cases. Cherry lifted one case in each hand, "Cherry will take them to Gray now."

"Why?"

"Emerald wanted the rifles lightened."

"Oh right. Well, why not let Clyde an' Ned do it. They're bigger."

"No! Cherry wants to do it."

"Alright, alright. Clyde, Ned you wanna help me answer questions from the audience?"

***

Cherry made her way to Gray's office. Little more than a utility closet with a chair really.

Cherry brushed back some long bright red hair behind her ear, "Emerald wants the weapons lightened."

"Lets see what we can do.", the front stock slid off quite easilly, The fron part of the barrel twisted off, and some of the details slid off. The back part of the rear stock slide off. The pieces fit together quite nicely into a small pistol.

When a solvent was poured of one of the detached side panels what remained was a stack of needle like projectiles. Another panel slid off the top of the weapon and folded into a clip. Gray reached onto a drawer and pulled out four centimeter long power cell and inserted it into the clip. The projectiles were loaded into the remaining space.

She performed the same procedure on the second rifle.

"Cherry does not understand, why not just take the weapons from the Barracuda?"

"DBC and the resolvers are watching those closely. You think you can ''lighten' the rifles yourself from here on?"

Cherry nodded.

***

While Emerald and her human associates took questions about the new weapon from the audience, Ruth took Goldie aside to a relatively secluded spot over by the side of the corridor.

She took hold of Goldie's hand and looked deep into her yellow eyes, "What I am about to tell you is being told to the other loli converts. I should have told you sooner, but we were so afraid of how you would react. You have been so kind to us, I hope we will still be friends after what I have to tell you.

I need you to know this is something I am doing of my own free will, no one has tricked me or is forcing me."

"What is it? It can't be all that bad."

"I'm pregnant."

Goldie had to consult her spex to find out what "pregnant" meant.