Cosmosis

Realization

(Starspeak)

The northern third of Pudiligsto had far less flooding than the rest of the city. Altitude alone protected it. The city’s canals quickly gave way to roads as the land inclined up to a plateau.

Kraknor climates didn’t line up one-to-one with Earth’s though. So instead of rocky desert outcropping, the plateau was dotted with loose woods.

I’d been to Los Angeles only twice, but it didn’t take many visits to tell what part of the city was the most expensive.

Shady woods and a view overlooking the whole city?

Yeah, Cadrune lived in the richest part of town.

Inside the rich neighborhoods, a further trend could be observed. The eastern reaches of the plateau and its slopes were not quite as nice as the west. It made sense. The closer you were to the water, the pricier your land.

I wondered if that was especially true for the practically amphibious Vorak.

Climbing the plateau’s slopes, I noticed an industrial section of the coast that connected to the largest river running through the city. Was it dry docks? It was like a square mile of the coastline was taken over by concrete, with something holding back the water so massive pipes and concrete slabs actually below sea level were still exposed to air.

Flicking my eyes to the spaceport and its reservoir, it occurred to me just how little of the city I’d actually seen. The mall we’d visited wasn’t even the biggest one in the city. I recognized two skyscrapers that had been flagged to use as emergency shelters. Further south, was that a sports stadium?

And this was just one city. Someone could spend an entire lifetime learning things about the planet and never even scratch the surface.

That became much less profound as soon as I realized billions of Vorak did just that.

It made me worry about going home.

But cart before the horse.

Macoru was approaching Cadrune’s estate. Alone.

I would have preferred both twins for this, just to give Cadrune and their security more moving parts to keep track of. Getting vocal about it hadn’t changed the fact that someone had to supervise the M&Ms.

Reminding me that the alternative was leaving Itun unchaperoned finally shut me up.

Besides, Macoru had updated her Simulacrum of her brother just this morning, so at least Mavriste was here in spirit.

“Since when have you done that with your hair?” Nai asked.

Unsure what she meant, I felt my head until I found the ponytail I’d tied against that Royal jerk.

“Cultist tried pulling my hair,” I shrugged. “Keeps the hair out of my eyes. Why do you ask?”

“…No reason. Cognitive bleed-through, I think. Plus the munchkins were snickering to Jordan about it this morning,” she said.

“They’re kids,” I shrugged. “Probably giggling that it makes me look like a girl.”

“I think you pull it off,” Nai said. “It makes you look like those…oh what was the word? Sword people. With the robes.”

“[…Samurai?]” I tried.

“No. Kinda? No, the ones from the movie. The laser swords.”

“[oh. Jedi,]” I said, rolling my eyes.

“Yeah, Jedi!” she grinned, knowing it would needle me a little.

Nai was just familiar enough with Earth fiction to know I could always be counted on to get snippy over Star Trek and Star Wars. But she also knew she wasn’t familiar enough to really needle me properly.

She was trying to put me at ease. Was I really that on edge?

…Yeah. I probably was.

Of the three corpses bringing us to Kraknor, preventing Ingrid’s was the one we’d made the least progress on by far. This was the first opportunity we’d found to get any real information. And what little I already knew painted a bad picture.

If Ingrid really was dying, there was a solid chance we wouldn’t be able to do anything.

“Don’t worry so much,” Nai reassured me. “Worst comes to worst and we drag Ingrid to the best hospital in the system.”

“It really bothers me her name doesn’t turn anything up at the local Org,” I said. “Cadrune’s kept her quiet.”

“Well then we already have plenty of fuel for the fire if we need to put them on a spit and roast them.”

Macoru warned.

I requested.

Macoru returned.

Nai gave a light rap on my firewall, offering a connection to her radar feed. I took it. She and I were watching from a small hill overlooking Cadrune’s estate with binoculars while Macoru approached…on a bike?

It was the coolest, most alien motorcycle you could possibly imagine, straight out of anyone’s favorite 80’s sci-fi, and no sooner had I seen it than she stepped off the vehicle and dematerialized it back into nothing.

“Okay, that’s a trick I need to learn,” Nai said.

I snorted.

“With your intricacy? Good luck.”

“Good luck with your mass, then,” she retorted easily.

In a move that hopefully wouldn’t burn us in the long run, we’d shared handbook technology with Macoru so we could keep psionic ears on her as she got admitted to the estate.

Instead of ringing the gate bell, however, Macoru materialized an airhorn and blasted it along with a psionic message.

Nai and I even gave a start.

It was fascinating to see the haze of thoughts within the estate fly into a frenzy. Like kicking an anthill.

The signal came from inside the manor, but it was noticeably moving. Nai and I both took note of the signal’s notable defensive measures. Atypical firewall and running a buildplate.

I wasn’t one-hundred-percent accurate reading the signs from this far away, but it presented as Spellbook.

This must be the estate’s head of security.

<[W-what the shit?]> another voice chimed in, this one from…not inside the estate. And speaking English.

Ingrid wasn’t actually inside, but…about half-a-mile northwest.

“<…The airfield,>” Nai gathered, comparing the signal direction and distance to our map.

Ingrid wasn’t actually on the estate. Did we even need to bother with any of Cadrune’s security?

the security rak shouted at Macoru. Tarrassin, not Starspeak.

Macoru assured them.

As the rak emerged from the house, they were visibly armed and dressed in a funny cross between tactical and casual. Heavy duty overalls with plenty of pockets and fasteners for spare magazines and supplies, but a diagonal checkered shirt underneath and—oh that was new—glasses.

Ingrid started to say before a burst of static cut off her message.

the security rak ordered.

They’d sent that last message on a band with different security protocols—one they probably assumed we couldn’t access. Big mistake.

“Seriously rak, put that gun down or I’m going to make you. Trying to be peaceful here,” Macoru said.

She said it with a steel gate separating them, but I had no doubt Macoru could embarrass the rak in seconds.

Something about her gave the chief of security pause enough to lower the gun. Not enough to stow it though.

“You are acting in a threatening manner,” they accused.

“Well I would have rung the doorbell, but it was broken,” Macoru lied.

“You have to hit the button,” the security rak said.

“Oh really? You should really put some labels on these things. How is someone supposed to know how to ring the house?” Macoru said, almost too mockingly.

“What business to you have with Harpe Cadrune?”

“None,” she shrugged. “I’m here to talk to Ingrid. I am Macoru. I met her last year and advised her against any involvement with Cadr—Harpe Cadrune, I mean.”

She’d pretended to forget the honorific, and the security guard knew it. Man, Macoru was better at winding people up than her brother.

Macoru advised.

Nai yanked the gearshift on our vehicle, and we started rolling again.

·····

“This is it?” I scoffed.

“It’s an airfield,” Nai shrugged. “What did you expect?”

Something more than a single runway, a smattering of warehouses, and a single tower. There was barely even a concourse. Certainly no terminal.

“There’s barely any security,” I frowned.

“What for? It’s just a bunch of hobby planes,” Nai pointed out.

“Even if it’s a small one, it’s still an airport,” I said. “Nobody here is worried about hijackers?”

“Why would someone hijack a plane?” Nai snorted.

“Trawl my memories for [nine-eleven], why don’t you?”

She paused only briefly to weigh the term.

“You might have a very inflated idea of the kind of planes an airfield like this stocks,” Nai said. “Heavier freight and cargo planes would be based out of the airport further north, across the border.”

“So we’re just going to walk into this one?” I asked incredulously.

Nai’s answer was to simply climb out and walk toward the main office. Fine. I could take the hint. A couple psionics spun up in Nai’s mind, dedicating more automated resources to her dictionary.

So when she got to the desk, she was prepared with some passable Tarassin.

“Hello. We are looking for—”

“Ingrid May?” the receptionist Vorak asked, staring right at me.

Yeah, it was obvious.

“Yes,” Nai said, her surprise instantly melting into satisfaction with herself. I couldn’t help but notice her dismissing those same psionic resources. Hah. She’d been prepared to display text ripped straight from the dictionary if need be.

“Just this way,” the rak said, beckoning toward a set of doors leading to the tarmac. The receptionist pointed toward the closest hangar.

“Ingrid should be inside.”

The receptionist gave a little bow before ducking back toward their post in the main building.

“Well?” Nai asked, switching to Speropi. “You ready?”

“[Cue the music,]” I said.

I’d mostly been kidding, but three steps later and I actually could hear some faint music being played somewhere inside the hangar.

The two of us strolled through the hangar’s open shutter and were greeted with a scene straight out of Top Gun. Two prop planes of alien sculpting and proportion sat at the ready in their spaces, towering tool chests and racks of parts lined them both. Along with the pumps, gauges, tanks, and all manner of equipment to go with the planes, that two-thirds of the hangar was dominated by business.

The remaining third didn’t have that professionalism. It was rugs, a television—scratch that—two televisions, a refrigerator, couches, and what might have even been a hookah still. On that section of the corrugated tin walls, hundreds of photos were stuck in place with magnets—not tin then. Steel.

Given that a hurricane had blown through recently, steel walls sounded much wiser. That said, it was almost unbelievable how nice the hangar presented itself. Some wind should have gotten in and made a mess of the place…

It must have been, I decided, because someone had cleaned up already. They’d done a spectacular job. Judging by the photos on the wall…

Ingrid spent a lot of time in this hangar.

As she was right now.

The sole occupant of the hangar was perched on a stool, hunched over a workbench, sparks flashing off her face shield while she soldered some delicate electronics into place.

Her foot bobbed along to the beat of the music coming from an iPod next to her on the workbench.

“[Y’know I wouldn’t have pegged you for a K-Pop fan,]” I announced.

Ingrid shrieked.

She leapt up from the stool in a panic, the soldering equipment instantly twisting itself into dematerialization.

“[What the shit!?]” she screamed. Her arm darted toward the nearest heavy piece of metal, motioning halfway like she was going to fling it at us.

But she stopped as my face seemed to register ‘human’ for her.

Then she threw it anyway.

“[What the shit?!]” she screeched again.

Her shock turned to anger quickly.

I caught the metal ratchet without ceremony, placing it gently atop the nearest tool cabinet.

“[Nice to finally meet face-to-face,]” I said. “[I’m Caleb. This is Nai.]”

I gestured to Ingrid like it was her turn to introduce herself, but she wasn’t having any of it. Panic was running across her expression like lighting, and she glanced toward the hangar’s backdoor. Toward the manor.

“[You fucking riled up security?]” she asked, connecting the dots from earlier.

“[A friend did,]” I explained. “[Honestly, I can’t decide if that place’s security detail is too high strung or completely incompetent. One Adept guard responding to a stranger at the gate feels like simultaneous under and overkill.]”

“[Seriously, this is pretty fucked up,]” Ingrid said. She was mad. Mad enough to reach for her Adeptry? She wasn’t going to actually attack us was she? No way.

…Right?

She thought about it. I saw it. But her eyes flicked toward Nai for just an imperceptible moment. No, she did not like her odds. I wouldn’t either.

In the end, she settled her anger into indignancy.

“[…You could have fucking called ahead!]”

“[Bullshit,]” I accused. “[I had some of my best people trying to contact you, and half-a-dozen more asking around town about you. You’ve been ghosting us for weeks now, and you’re going to get pissed that we didn’t call?]”

Ingrid flinched.

There. Time to back off a smidge.

“[Think we can sit down?]” I asked. “[The way I see it, we’re overdue for a whale of a conversation.]”

The three of us plopped down on the couches, and Ingrid even popped open the fridge. She pulled out a wobbly foil package, then another.

“[Want a drink?]” she asked. “[It’s a bit like lemonade.]”

“[Safe for humans?]” I asked.

She nodded, materializing a straw and poking it straight into her foil pouch.

Hah! I’d heard about this from Dustin’s letters, but it was my first time seeing it. The Vorak equivalent of the aluminum beverage can was the juice pouch.

Ingrid tossed me one, and I copied her Adept straw.

“Toss me one, please?” Nai asked, holding up a hand.

Ingrid eyed my Farnata friend warily, but tossed one anyway.

“[Is it safe for them?]” Ingrid asked me.

Nai checked the label against her nutritional index. It passed muster.

Okay then. I materialized a second straw and flicked it to her.

I sipped the juice, and Ingrid was right: similar to lemonade.

It wasn’t as sour or fruity though. More like honey and sweet tea? But…maybe with some banana thrown in?

There wasn’t a clear analogue for the flavor, or even an aggregate comparison that might suit it.

“[Not bad,]” I admitted. It was especially good cold.

Nai sipped hers too and made a face.

“Oh that’s, awful,” Nai said, immediately taking another sip. “It’s so sour…” A third sip.

“[Is it really that bad for you?]” I asked.

Nai wasn’t slowing down though, taking a fourth sip and immediately grimacing again.

“Yes! It’s like someone mixed pure sugar and battery acid,” she laughed. “It tastes awful, but the flavor disappears so quickly, you want to try more just to make sure it wasn’t your imagination.”

I was tempted to open the superconnector for a peek at the taste through her perspective, but I didn’t want to get too distracted.

Putting Ingrid more at ease with some small talk was worth it, but this conversation was ultimately business and long overdue.

“[How can she understand you?]” Ingrid asked.

“[Nai? She understands you too, you know,]” I said. “[She knows English.]”

“[Really?]”

“[I don’t speak it too well, but I understand it spoken as well as Caleb,]” Nai said.

Could Ingrid tell how carefully Nai had to form the sounds to keep them distinct from Speropi? I could tell, but I wasn’t sure if that was because I spoke English or because I had the same problem trying to speak in Speropi.

“You mind if we switch to Starspeak?” I asked. “[The juice boxes are nice,] but I’ve come a long way for some answers.”

“I’ve got questions of my own,” Ingrid said. “For starters, how’d you even find me?”

“We were visiting your fellow abductees around Hashtin and your friend Christina said you were dying,” I said. “Funny. You didn’t seem to get the memo.”

Ingrid’s confusion only deepened.

“What made her think I wasn’t dead already—” she started to say, and then buried her face in her palms. “[The fucking transponder…]”

Her firewall was unexpectedly tight, but not so tight I couldn’t catch a glimpse of her crushing a small and obscure construct in a neglected corner of her mind.

“Why are you so determined for everyone to think you’re dead?” I asked.

“…Because I will be soon enough,” Ingrid said.

“Come again?” I asked.

Ingrid grabbed her sweater and pulled the collar down, exposing her sternum…

…and a vertical scar running right down the middle of her chest.

“Christina said you were terminally ill, but she didn’t have the specifics,” I said. “Just how recent is that?”

“It’s from Earth,” Ingrid reassured. “I didn’t exactly walk around the A-ships shirtless. I kept it quiet, because I didn’t want people asking questions.”

“Questions are here anyway,” I said. “They’re all worried about you, and I said I’d help bring you back.”

Ingrid pulled her sweater back up and sat back uncomfortably.

“Well you already know I was abducted from Germany,” she said. “But three weeks before that, I flew back to the United States for a heart transplant. I was going to die without one, and the best donor match I had was only five out of six. That’s…”

“[You can tell the story in English if it’s any easier,]” I offered.

“Better if I don’t,” she said. “Five out of six. It’s not good, but it’s what we could get. My parents couldn’t actually leave Germany, so I did my three weeks of rehab in the states basically alone before I flew back.”

“I'm shocked it was only three weeks of rehab,” I said. “For a heart transplant?”

“Well, remember, my parents were still stationed in Germany and there was decent odds I’d die from rejection, so we wanted to get me back with them as soon as possible, just in case.”

“I’ve heard how this story ends,” Nai said. “You arrive back in—Germany, right? Yeah, you arrive back in Germany, and you get abducted?”

“Two nights on base, and my dad gets a day of leave. We go out for supper and stargazing in this massive nature preserve near base and…”

Ingrid made a ‘grab’ and ‘up’ motion.

“Got abducted. Funnily enough, I’d already met Christina once before my surgery. Surreal seeing her on board the A-ship. But that whole time, I’m terrified and I can feel the heart I wasn’t born with pounding in my chest, and I just know it’s going to give out on me any minute. And that feeling didn’t get any better over the next month-and-a-half.”

“…Because that’s how long the anti-rejection meds you were abducted with would last,” I followed.

“I gave my mom so much grief for making me take all the pill bottles in my backpack when we went off base. She was squawking ‘what if you get caught in a rainstorm?’, ‘what if the car breaks down and you can’t get home for your dose?’. The irony is just sickening,” Ingrid said bitterly. “But those pills ran out, and I’ve been on borrowed time ever since.”

“And you came to Kraknor, to Cadrune—one of the richest, most powerful Vorak around—to try and stay alive?” I asked. “But we talked to the Organic Authority, they haven’t seen you since your initial checkup back on the Hashtin’s moons.”

Ingrid stared at the ground glumly.

“Cadrune flew in a specialist,” she said numbly.

Ah.

I almost blurted out my next question: ‘so is Cadrune extorting you for medicine?’

But I had a sneaking suspicion that the security camera mounted in the corner was wired for sound. Interesting the hangar had a camera at all. They would be expensive to install in a building like this—one that amounted to a large metal shack.

I could ask psionically, but there was a question of exactly what Cadrune was offering her and exactly what the rich Vorak was getting out of this.

“So you’ve been expecting to keel over dead any day now for the past two years?”

“More like one-and-a-half, but basically,” Ingrid nodded. “I haven’t scheduled any plans more than a week in advance since I got to this planet.”

“So why does Cadrune have you spending time at an airfield like this?” I asked.

“They don’t,” she said simply. “Reducing stress is important for me, and I like flying. Learning about planes has honestly been therapeutic. I even got a pilot’s license.”

“The Vorak licensed a human?” I asked.

“There were extra documents and forms, but yeah.”

I traded a quick look with Nai.

We regularly had telepathic conversations, but we knew each other well enough that sometimes even that was unnecessary.

“I want to see this specialist of Cadrune’s,” I said, “and get you to actually visit the Org.”

“I don’t think you need to bother,” Ingrid shrugged. “But if it makes you feel any better, fine. But not today. I’m burnt already.”

At first glance, I loathed the idea of waiting. Her condition sounded critical, and according to her, every hour counted. But there was an obvious caveat staring us in the face.

Ingrid was still alive after three years sans anti-rejection meds. Cadrune could have been medicating her, but that was unlikely. She hadn’t been on Kraknor the whole time, and she’d still spent her first year in space confined to her A-ship just like all the rest of the Ramstein crew had been.

No, she should be dead.

Someone was lying here, either Cadrune, their medical ‘specialist’, or possibly even Ingrid.

Nai and I shared another loaded glance. Yeah, she’d picked up on it too.

That changed things then. If the picture Ingrid painted of her own health wasn’t accurate, then we had a different, slower game on our hands.

We could afford to wait, at least a little while.

Nai took the hint. We’d back off and just invest some time with Ingrid today. Besides, we’d gotten to this point with help, now having disentangled herself from Cadrune’s estate security.

A knock came at the hangar entrance.

“Yo, Ingrid,” Macoru said.

Ingrid blinked in utter shock.

“M-Mac?” she asked.

“In the flesh.”

“Well, come on, sit down! Here, I’ve got drinks if you want one?”

Macoru declined, but joined us on the couches.

“What are you doing here? How—” Ingrid asked.

Macoru jutted her head at Nai and me.

“We crossed paths with Caleb. Told him we’d seen a human. Helped each other out here and there. Not that much to tell, really. But I figured as long as we were coming to a place like Pudiligsto, we might as well make sure we swung by and checked up on you.”

“I’m fine,” Ingrid insisted.

“You’re still living in the devil’s manor,” the Vorak said.

She paused though—weighing her word choice considering I was sitting in the room, no doubt. Ingrid didn’t recognize my epithet though. It was kind of fun hearing someone else be more of a devil than me, even if it was only in one Vorak’s mind.

“Cadrune’s not that bad,” Ingrid said. The words were pretty lame. Like she didn’t even believe them herself.

Macoru just snorted.

“Suit yourself. I can’t stop you,” she said. “What about your Adeptry? Still coming along?”

“Not bad,” she said. “I figured out your dumb trick though.”

To prove it, she materialized a burst of blue and black dotted plasma off the tip of one finger. Then, the same roiling bubble of plasma zipped to her other finger and back again.

“Whoa…” I said.

A famous constraint of Adeptry was that there was never any telekinesis involved. You made something, and then it existed according to the first law of motion. If you wanted your Adeptry to move, you had to create something capable of moving itself.

And yet…

The plasma Ingrid had created seemed to be defying that rule before our very eyes.

Nai was as interested as I was, leaning forward to scrutinize Ingrid’s creation closer. Nai wasn’t so caught up in the impossibility as I was though. It took me a few seconds to catch up, but Nai’s Vorpal Fire could appear to move telekinetically through carefully positioned internal pressure imbalances.

You could also just create more of it fluidly, and it achieved largely the same effect.

Macoru mimicked Ingrid with a bubble of pink and green plasma—very much like the kind she’d nearly skewered me with when we first met. Fighting on the cargo ship with Vo had shown yet another example of the Missionary Marines’ signature trick.

“Okay, you got me,” I said. “What’s the plasma?”

Macoru puffed up proudly.

“It’s a poly-perpendicular nanofluid integrated with psionic—”

“AAAaaahhhh, tah, tttah,” Nai raised her voice, trying to cut off Macoru.

“I’m sorry?” Macoru started.

“Just as a favor to me,” Nai said slowly, “no Realized talk around Caleb.”

Macoru, Ingrid, and I all blinked in confusion, all for different reasons.

“Wait…you mean Caleb hasn’t Realized?”

Both of them looked at me first before seeing my confusion and turning back to Nai.

“That’s…a complicated question,” she said. “I’d say he’s half-Realized. Because on the one hand, he definitely hasn’t actually Realized. But at the same time, he makes nonsense like psionics. So…he’s something in the middle. I wouldn’t like it at all if you tried to spoil the breakthrough for him though, if you please.”

“Wait, realized what?” I asked.

All three women ignored me.

“You actually believe that superstition?” Macoru asked.

“It’s not superstition,” Nai insisted.

“There’s pretty solid longitudinal studies to say it is,” Macoru said.

“For average Adepts, those studies are probably right,” Nai conceded. “But of the top eight most skilled Adepts alive? Every one of them has self-Realized.”

“Realized what?” I repeated.

“Just the top eight?” Macoru mocked. “On this planet we use base ten, you know?”

Nai actually took the question seriously and weighed them in her mind.

“As far as I know, yes, the top ten too,” she confirmed.

“…And I’m sure it’s just coincidence that they’re all Farnata?” Macoru accused.

Nai blinked.

“What? No, six, and eight through ten are all Vorak,” she said.

“Oh, but the top five are Farnata.”

“Don’t think I’m bragging or anything, but…do you really know of any Vorak Adept who beats any of the five of us on their own?” Nai asked.

“Wait, now I’m the one who’s lost,” Ingrid said. “Who are you?”

“They’re talking about the best Adepts alive, right? Nai’s number five,” I said. “But what is this Realization?”

“You remember at the Org when Umtane was talking to you about indelible Adeptry, and how only some Adepts are really capable of it?”

“Yeah, I still haven’t managed to figure it out,” I frowned. “The plasma trick is indelible?”

“No,” Nai said. “Well, maybe it is. I don’t know. The point was, I said there was some Vorak superstitions about Adeptry changing properties post-mortem instead of fading altogether. Well, the Farnata have some superstitions too.”

“The Realization is chief among them,” Macoru said.

“It’s what it says on the label,” Nai explained. “There’s a literal, definable realization that you can have about Adeptry that can revolutionize the way you connect with, conceptualize, and actually practice your Adeptry. But…there’s a strange psychological quirk, where, if the Realization is told to you, you don’t really grow as much from it. You don’t digest or internalize it nearly the same way compared to the Adepts that figure it out for themselves.”

“No, no, she’s making it sound like the superstition is the Realization,” Macoru said. “The Realization is well defined in the heights of Adeptry. It’s the ‘telling other people about it’ that’s the Farnata superstition.”

“That’s what you were gating from me and Jordan,” I recognized. “It doesn’t matter if Tasser and Sid know what the Realization is because they’re not Adept.”

“I’ve been gating it from you for years now,” Nai said. “It’s probably just more noticeable when you’re explicitly getting denied info that someone else in the link is still receiving.”

“You done?” Macoru asked.

“Hey, I know for a fact that the best Vorak Adept alive happens to believe in the self-Realization theory too,” Nai said.

“And you just know all about Railgun because—”

Macoru actually clapped her mouth shut, and I could swear I heard her Simulacrum of Mavriste cackling somewhere inside her mind.

“Yeah. I would know,” Nai grinned.

But she motioned for Ingrid to keep talking about how she figured out the M&M’s plasma trick.

“[Their trick is a smart plasma,]” Ingrid explained, switching to English. “[Gasses and plasmas are generally excited in a random fashion. Which is to say, the—mmm…wait…]”

She cast an unsure look in Nai’s direction.

“Oh, I get it,” Nai said. “Because particles’ heat-motion is random.”

“[Yeah! The particles all move in random directions, ordinarily, bumping into each other. On the macro scale, those random motions basically cancel out as long as your substance has a high enough surface tension to keep the cloud from dispersing into the regular air. But the material stays hot,]” Ingrid said. “[Heat-motion. I like that. But if you add…Mmm…I don’t know how to explain this without spoiling the Realization.]”

“You can drastically alter the plasma’s randomness if you make the substance psionic-sensitive,” Macoru explained. “Not that you can slap whatever psionics you want into it…”

“Yeah, the constructs are all pretty specific,” Ingrid said, following Macoru back into Starspeak, “dense too.”

“Are?” I asked. “All? As in more than one?”

Macoru puffed up again.

“It’s an adapting semi-modular construct,” Ingrid said. “The psionics in any one pocket of the plasma change depending on how the plasma is moving. It’s all about fighting chaotic fluid dynamics and deferring entropy.”

I blinked in confusion. I could count on one hand the number of times I’d been confused by words I’d added to the English-Starspeak dictionary. Individually, I understood all of Ingrid’s words.

But together? Her technical knowledge exceeded mine, and it showed.

“I can’t detect any psionics at all in the fluid,” I admitted.

“You would if you touched it,” Macoru assured me. “The constructs are specialized and use a custom embedding pattern. Most psionics don’t like being embedded in anything fluid.”

“Most psionics aren’t capable of any active functions while embedded unless they’re also currently connected to a mind,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, so the smart plasma is pointless unless you’re connected to it,” Nai gathered.

“And I won’t be able to pull this off, because I haven’t Realized the big Adept secret?” I asked.

“No, you’ll definitely be able to pull off a version of it,” Macoru said. “It just won’t cleanly map to our plasma material very well. Ours is optimized for Realized Adepts.”

“Is it that big of a difference?” I asked.

“Remember when we talked about the twelve-point scale?” Nai asked. “I said an L1 Adept could still achieve a perfect twelve on the scale?”

I nodded.

“Realizing is how something like that happens. It won’t change your mass limit, or your range, or your intricacy, but it will fundamentally change how you approach Adeptry in all forms.”

“I can count on one set of claws the number of times I’ve seen unrealized Adepts outperform Realized ones,” Macoru said. “Realized Adepts just have that fundamental an advantage over their counterparts.”

“It’s worth remembering that the Realization is still about Adeptry,” Nai pointed out, “not necessarily combat ability. A fight will still come down to who fights smarter…”

“But it’s a lot easier to fight smarter when you know the full potential of your powers,” Macoru said.

“Okay. Let me give this smart plasma a shot then,” I said. “If Nai wants me to figure it out on my own so bad, I better get started, huh?”