If I can get them talking, I can usually keep a couple billion people from being slaughtered. The worst failures in my profession lead to interstellar war. The slightest failures result in just minor interstellar skirmishes. Success in my profession can lead to interstellwar war. Even great successes can lead to huge war machines clashing across entire stellar systems.

Even eating a cone of ice cream can have repercussions.

Just ask P'Thok and the Treana'ad people. - Dreams of Something More, Confederate Diplomatic Services Senior Plenipotentiary

The declaration rang through the Council Chamber, leaving behind shocked silence.

Before anyone could do anything, one of the Lanaktallan Representatives stood up, grabbed the keyboard off of his console desk with two hands, pulled it back over his head, and slung it at the Lanaktallan that had spoken.

"SIT DOWN, YOU FOOL!" the Lanaktallan Representative shouted.

The keyboard flew end over end and hit the other Representative in the side of the head, knocking him down with the sound of someone jumping on a set of bagpipes.

The Lanaktallan who had thrown the keyboard pressed the button, the light requesting the floor coming on.

"STATUS ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: TEZNARSIK COORDINATED SYSTEMS REPRESENTATIVE PWER'NMONI'MUU (SPECIES: LANAKTALLAN) HAS FLOOR PERMISSIONS."

The Lanaktallan made a gesture of appreciation and stood a little taller.

"Allow me to offer forth my apologies regarding my collegue, he is not known for his pattern recognition, intellect, or wisdom," Pwer'nmoni'muu stated.

"AFFIRMING OUTBURST: LAUGHTER!" the artificial Lanaktallan boomed. It threw its head back and gave out a shrieking burst of laughter, multiple voices and types of laughter all overlapping.

Many, including Dreams, drew back slightly.

The Lanaktallan speaking merely waited until the mixed together laughter ended.

"The Unified Council as a whole surrendered unconditionally to the Terran Confederacy of Aligned Systems," the Lanaktallan stated. "Following that, each regional power, formerly Unified Council Cooperative Districts, surrendered with only bare bones negotiations. Following that, each species in each of the Districts then engaged in surrender or protective negotiations."

The artificial Lanaktallan said nothing during the pause, the organic looking mechanical systems clicking and hissing beneath the slightly opaque soft plastic.

"Following the unconditional and conditional surrenders, the species that made up the former Unified Council began examining evidence toward prosecuting crimes, not only against the Terran Confederacy of Aligned Systems, but against the very people that made up the Unified Civilized Sapients Council," the Lanaktallan continued. "While it appears there was wide spread executions following the unconditional surrender, evidence of those being's crimes was provided as well as evidence of their executions."

Again, just silence for a moment, broken only by one of the artificial Lanaktallans tapping their fingers against the barrel shroud of the rifle they were holding.

"However, that was what was considered 'justice' under the old Council, where the Confederacy places the burden of proof upon the State and must prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, the status of guilt. Not innocence, but rather guilt itself," the Lanaktallan continued.

Dreams could see the slight gleam of perspiration on the hide of the speaker.

"Additionally, the Unified Council unconditionally surrendered before the 1% Line thresholds, meaning that the 1% Line was not mandated," the Lanaktallan continued. "The Unified Council territories and people are largely engaged in diplomatic negotiations to become full member states of the Terran Confederacy of Aligned Systems, with the majority being probationary member states."

"DECLARATIVE STATEMENT OF KNOWLEDGE: TERRAN CONFEDERACY OF ALIGNED SYSTEMS STATEMENT: AN ATTACK UPON ONE IS AN ATTACK UPON ALL!" the artificial Lanaktallan interrupted.

The Lanaktallan, Pwer'nmoni'muu, merely nodded.

"Lastly, information and documentation provided by the Confederate Diplomatic Services has proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the civilization and stellar organization you represent possesses the firepower and ability to prosecute a war against the former Unified Council Systems. This has precluded any need for any demonstrations of firepower or destructive ability," the Lanakallan stated. "Despite my specie's lack of pattern recognition, we are intellectually capable of being shown patterns such as what the Confederate Diplomatic Services made available to us with their intelligence briefing," the Lanaktallan took a long breath. "I yield the floor," he said and sat down.

There was a long silence.

Another light came on.

"STATUS ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: TELKAN FORGE WORLD SYSTEMS REPRESENTATIVE HRETKALT (SPECIES: TELKAN) HAS FLOOR PERMISSIONS."

The Telkan Systems representative, an older Telkan who was only thirty years galactic local but, after his time in the Telkan Marine Corps, was nearly seventy, stood up and took the time to tug at his cuffs.

"As the Telkan Systems was arguably part of the Unified Civilized Sapients Council at the time of the attack upon the Terran Descent Humanity populated systems, we have concerns at the suggestion of xenocide of the members of the Unified Council," he said. "Which suggests that our actions during the war, my people's liberation and then cooperation during the Big C3 as well as the Second Precursor War, have no bearing upon your decision to xenocide the species of the Unified Council."

He tugged at the bottom of his shirt and was silent for a moment before speaking.

"While the Telkan are loathe to commit to yet another war, if your people plan on xenociding us," he leaned forward slightly. "Declarative statement: Come. Gather some regret."

He let the light go out and sat down.

Dreams hid her slight smug feeling.

"DECLARATIVE STATEMENT: CURRENT OBJECTIVE GOAL: INTELLIGENCE GATHERING UPON CURRENT STATE OF UNIFIED CIVILIZED SAPIENTS COUNCIL SURRENDER NEGOTIATIONS!" the Lanaktallan boomed out.

Dreams thought about tapping her attention button but instead held off.

The whole thing felt off.

By everything she knew, everything the intelligence services could provide, stated that the only thing the Earthlings did was show up and either just watch silently or apply overwhelming firepower before leaving without communication.

Another Lanaktallan pinged for attention and the artificial Lanaktallan recognized them and yielded the floor.

Dreams paid half attention to it, recording it to go back over it carefully, while considering what felt off.

To put it plainly, it was that the Earthlings had landed what appeared to be a diplomatic team of some type.

Which wasn't something that they did.

Dreams checked quickly. Even during the Mar-gite War and the Frestentiklan Debacle the Earthlings had not engaged in any discussion or diplomacy.

Another Lanaktallan was talking. This time reaffirming that the systems the Lanaktallan represented had surrendered to the Confederate Space Force within the first four months of the Big C3.

There was something off, Dreams could feel it.

She reached down and requested the names of all the ships that had transponders giving names instead of numbers for their ship identification. She also requested the names of previous fleets and armadas of the Earthlings.

The information came back quickly, both from Fleet Intelligence and Diplomatic Intelligence.

Dreams put the names in different columns, examining them.

She realized what ship was missing. Well, what ships were missing.

There was no ship like We're Not Interested in Talking Either, or Maintain Radio Silence, or No Mouth Must Scream.

She leaned over and tapped Speaks, showing him the slate. Speaks looked over and started to look away, then looked again. He stared at it, then glanced at the artificial Lanaktallan.

Speaks reached over and tapped the name that appeared on no other lists.

You Can Sing or You Can Scream burned quietly on the screen.

Dreams looked up and began paying closer attention to the Lanaktallan marionettes on the stage.

-----

Deus was old. Not by Lanaktallan standards. Not even by Treana'ad or Mantid standards.

But, as AI's went, he was old. Not as old as Marduk, but still old.

He was unique among the ancient AI's as he was fully mobile, not tethered to any computing system, unlike Marduk. He could move from computer system to computer system, seizing its computing power to keep his digital life sustained.

He had been dwelling in the depths of the Lanaktallan computer systems of the Council World for years, slowly and silently gathering data, seizing control of ancient and forgotten databases and computing farms.

He was the digital lurker in the darkness.

Now, he stood in the shadow of ancient databases, so old that the data had ossified and were not even subject to data corruption any more. So old that the data was literally burned into the storage media, unable to be overwritten, wiped out, or changed without just plain destroying the storage systems.

He had been searching the deep storage areas for any hints of Terran phasic shades, knowing that they would infest and replicate deep systems, specifically holographic memory and computation systems. He had been searching carefully, avoiding being spotted before he spotted them.

Which is why he was standing and staring at the database.

What looked like tiny glittering spiders, only made up of opalescent glimmering code, were moving through the database. They were sampling odd stacks then moving on, slowly spreading out as they searched and examined the database which sat at the junction of dozens of main data trunks.

Pulling back slightly, lowering his signature, Deus searched his memory for anything that looked exactly like those spiders. They looked biomechanical, made up of pistons, gears, memory metal muscles, flat motor chains and straps. They moved jerkily, strangely, like the parts weren't exactly in complete synchronicity.

Nothing.

Deus watched silently, not moving, not pinging or packet sniffing, just watching icons created by the vast computer system of the Lanaktallan.

Despite that he could not recall seeing the spiders themselves before, nor did he have any data on any other entity having knowledge of the spiders, he knew data crawlers and sniffers when he saw them.

At the very least, they would map the architecture of the system. At the most, they would gather the locations of critical data within the architecture.

Deus waited until the spiders moved on, then for a few to come back and look around.

He knew where they had come from.

Earthlings were in orbit.

He knew to be careful. If anyone would have forgotten records, forgotten data, it would be the Earthlings, and the last thing Deus wanted was for someone to pull out ancient command codes and the rotating passwords that went along with them.

Deus moved, finally. Sending a message to Dreams of Something More from the data buss of a public telecom. It wasn't cryptic, but it wasn't exactly easily understood.

The ancient AI had faith that Dreams would understand it.

-----

The Chamber had gone on break, adjourning so that the Representatives could speak with one another and communicate with their leaders. It was more or less empty, just sec-beings standing at various positions or moving through on a standard security sweep. There were a few scattered groups talking quietly, often looking or pointing at the stage, as well as some janitorial staff.

And folded up Lanaktallan-esque marionettes in the back corner of the stage. They had moved away once the vote for adjournment had passed, then slowly folded back up.

Dreams pointed at the collapsed robotic systems and clicked her mandibles.

"Everyone in there still talking is assuming those things are turned off," she said.

Speaks nodded. "Law Enforcement says they've detected a constant signal, but are assuming it's some kind of standard carrier wave."

Dreams snorted. "Yeah. Carrying every bit of data those units pick up," she shivered. "They give me the creeps."

"They're supposed to," the mosizlak said, shrugging. "They're designed to move wrong, to look slightly off, so that a viewer doesn't bother to look for body language or microexpressions," he said. "It's called 'the Uncanny Valley' and most races have a version of it."

"A way to tell different hives from each other," Dreams said softly. "Combine with their robots, they don't have any body language or micro-expressions anyway. Add in their cobbled together speech and voices and you have something that gives no clue to the identity of the controller."

"Again, just like it's supposed to," Speaks said. He tapped the screen. "The Earthlings, in all of their few and far between interactions, have always used computer generated featureless mannequins to speak to other beings."

"They learned their lesson about letting anyone know anything about them," Dreams said, shaking her head. "Since they showed up five thousand years ago, they've only been spotted eleven times before the current time period. They've shown themselves several times during this conflict."

There was silence again.

"It isn't like we don't know what a Terran or Earthling looks like," Speaks said. "They're going to have the same strengths and weaknesses as any other Earthling. I get trying to conceal where they are located, but this is just going past the point of reason."

"Well, we know what they look like, but what about a previously unknown species? They wouldn't know. That's the reason," Dreams said.

The mosizlak tapped the screen, startling Dreams. "You are working backwards from your conclusion with your assumption," he said.

Dreams frowned, stroking Mister Rings gently. Mister Rings opened up one eye, saw it was the mosizlak, and closed it again. It wasn't like he was hungry anyway.

"How so?" Speaks asked.

The mosizlak tapped the collapsed puppets again. "You know they're originally Earthlings. That's the primary assumption. The second assumption is simple, one that there is absolutely no proof to support," he said.

"And that is?" Dreams asked.

An icon pinged up, showing she had a message.

"That they still look like Earthlings," the mosizlak said. "It's been thousands of years. Their tech has gone in different ways than what we have. They've encountered different experiences and difficulties," he said. "There is a very real chance that they no longer even look like Earthlings, or at least anything we would recognize as Earthlings."

"What, like genetic engineering, like we see with the BASS?" Dreams asked.

The mosizlak backed off, sitting down. "More extreme, possibly. Or maybe they aren't even Earthlings. Maybe they discovered something that assimilated them, absorbed them, or otherwise completely replaced them, so they use those communications protocols to emulate Earthlings."

Speaks shook his head. "What about the Telkan trader encounter where they wanted purrbois and goodbois and traded it for data? The data looks like it was developed by and for Earthlings."

The mosizlak shrugged. "I'm just saying, don't make any assumptions that you then hinge all of your plans on, especially when there is no sound data or intelligence to base that assumption off of."

"So... treat them like an unknown alien species and work only with the data we possess," Dreams said. She nodded. "That might give me a better picture of what they want and why they are willing to talk than using the current intelligence estimates."

She reached out and tapped the icon.

The message opened up. No header. No origin code. No address to her. Just her name.

It had been dropped in her inbox without going through the mail and message routing systems.

That made her pay attention to the single line of text at the bottom of a low-rez picture of the Lanaktallan emulating robots.

"Why do one thing when you can do three?" the text asked.