[u]4. Dvork[/u]
-Planet Terrsubia, Mavine system-

The Old Corridor's brown stone buildings and cobble streets obscured the City of Dream. It was a pleasant effect, or at least the residents of the Old Corridor thought so. To Dvork, it was just another window shade. Downtown threw skyscrapers up in the way. The Glens had literal windowshades - nothing to stop you from seeing the slowly moving, unfamiliar stars in that open country. The Old Corridor preferred to obscure modern technology instead. All its streets and buildings were carefully calculated so no part of the downtown Dream was visible. Each to their own.

As it was, Dvork was getting plenty of glances-that-hurriedly-looked-away. No different than when he had to visit any other district of the City of Dream. Aside from failing to blend with local custom and habit, his Terrsubian augments made him bulkier than average, even if they were toned down from a full star-warrior's. As he walked, he left a wake, citizens skittering out of his way. He wasn't a star-warrior. Nowhere near. But apparently that didn't matter to people.

Finally reaching his destination, Dvork hurried off the cobbled street and down a narrow curving ramp. Something was dripping onto his back and sliding down his foreleg. It was probably water. A pipe did, in fact, run overhead, droplets condensed onto the side. His way was only illuminated by the faint glow of a wireless power line to his right. The City's white noise faded as he left the cramped entrance to the ramp behind.

At the bottom of the ramp, a scanner took a moment to identify Dvork's musk before irising open the doorway. Beyond was a dimly lit room, tubes of orangeglow providing warmth. He could only just see the blackness of another doorway on the far side of the room. Citizens huddled near the tubes carefully avoided even looking up at him. Likely they'd been conditioned not to bother anyone sporting the ExtraSolar Affairs Agency's logo. 

"You have summoned me," Dvork said to the other doorway.
"Yes. Come," came a response.

Dvork made an effort not to examine the citizens too closely as he walked through the room. A horrendous stink came from what was presumably a ramp to a lower level in the corner. He stopped in the other room. It was completely black, but he could smell another's musk.

"Sir," Dvork said out of respect.
"My eyes, you see, need to be dark adjusted constantly."

Dvork felt the Researcher's claw nudge his foreleg.

"But I made a map for visitors a long time ago. Transferring."
The Researcher's claw dug into the gray-matter nodule in Dvork's foreleg. Data transferred into Dvork's implants, reprogramming the artificial glial cells in his brain. Stimulated optic nerve impulses overlaid the darkness with a wireframe. 

The room was small, originally some form of antechamber, now with the Researcher's nest piled over what may have been furniture. A sparkling purple node in the corner represented a data point. It was linked into some form of older data architecture, not the modern quantum trinary. Physically, the data point was a spike that disappeared into a hole in the floor. Peering down, Dvork saw that the hole went deep. Very deep. Perhaps deep enough to reach the earliest salvageable layer of Terrsubia station. Sparks glinted off of metal wiring somewhere in the twisted mass, far below. Dvork even thought that he might be able to see the sphere of orangeglow near Terrsubia's original station body that kept the planet warm. Dvork knew that Researchers had been experimenting with accessing the Old Grid by driving a data-point spike deep into the earth, but this went much deeper than he had thought possible.

"Now then, present this file to the ESAA Director at once. Possibly from there to the Aquattius."

A small file transferred to Dvork's internal network.

"Respectfully, Researcher, what could possibly be so important?"

"An unaccounted for gate emission." It took a moment for that to fully sink in. The only gate technology that the Aquattians knew about belonged to them. Either someone had hijacked Central Gate Command (something so foolish and dangerous as to be dismissed at once), or the enemy had finally developed gate technology. The very thought bowed his forelegs. Every Aquattian's nightmare was the loss of their technological advantage before the solar system left local space.. Of course, there was one more possibility that re-stiffened Dvork's forelegs. the Researcher could be wrong.

"Impossible!" Dvork proclaimed.
"I believed the judgment of impossibility still lay within the Researcher's domain, half-warrior," the Researcher said. 

Dvork wanted to counter the insult, but knew it would be pointless. All anybody ever saw was the ESAA logo. And all anyone knew them for were the star-warriors, and all anyone knew [i]them[/i] for was losing the most important battle in Aquattian history. That, and having highly-regulated Terrsubian augments, inflating their bulk to easily twice an average Aquattian's size. Their musk reeked of blood, and it was never an enemy's blood. Dvork turned to leave without so much as a goodbye. The Researcher apparently did the same. Neither protocol nor politeness could convince them to stay in each other's company, and Dvork wanted to leave the stinking underground lair as quickly as possible.