FALAHA'S JOURNEY 2: Graveyard of the Gods

Episode #15

Nayat and I left the General's bloodlight and dived further into the shining stream. Now we needed something that would exist only in the memories of Dorgu. We needed to look at someone from the Alima Eni directly, and since he was blood-related to them, he was the perfect specimen to contemplate. But before we proceeded with that, I had to inspect the General's system in full. I loaded its body map in front of us. I could see where Shaamta had tweaked and twisted it. At this point it became unusable. It became marred by the corruption of the processes within it: his soma was now trying to consume the host. It went so deep that restoring it was beyond reasonable. It needed to be taken out completely yet separating it from the living person was not so simple a task. The places my soma connected with the damaged one were trying to rewrite itself, clinging to life, to reset the processes, to heal. But they weren't enough to completely override the defilement. Where my soma healed one process, several others appeared to destroy the restored one. Not as fast as before my soma entered his system, but still persistent.

There was one thing I could do before corrupt blood threads reappeared: I copied the healed ones and saved them within my soma, thus putting a start to creation of the new system with new set of processes and rules. I would grow and inject the new system to override the damaged one, avoiding the blood transfusion. Yet it must be done in a single move, canceling out every malignant thread at once. Like a Tabiru with the Maok. But for that we needed to collect several system parts from different beings. I could easily stop the ailments of the Surani with a regular Tabiru, like the Maok did, but that would mean I would need to merge with every one of them.

"What do you think, Nayat?" I asked the Baali girl.

"Indeed, Tabiru is a very intimate process," she replied. "Even for me that would be weird to merge with so many people, if I could do such a thing that is. I can understand doing it with the ones you know deeply for a long time, but these are complete strangers. So I would avoid this route."

"Even if it could save lives without much hassle?" I asked.

"Yes. I think that the option you planned first is better. You can clone the system we will make and apply it then to every Surani person. Besides, maybe not every person would be happy with a complete merger. It's not a one-sided decision to make."

"When I meet Shaamta again, I'm going to give him a thorough trim of that pretty long mane he's so proud of, along with his head. Because he's pushing me to go the longest route to fix a problem he had created."

"Why don't you ask Beren first? Maybe you can Tabiru with the General. As a test." She smirked. "Though I wouldn't want to see the faces your men will make if they will find out. So I'd go with trying that option with his daughter. It would be less... provoking for your stubborn Inner Circle."

"Well, yes, they can get irrationally jealous and unbearable. Nothing new to see there." I sighed. "I shall talk to them about all this."

"I trust in your diplomatic skills, Falaha Yajur Sangu," Nayat replied, still smirking.

I sighed again. Even a child foresaw that it was not such a good idea. Fine. Yet I still was the only one to decide what I can and cannot do with my body. And even if I merged with and healed someone, I still needed a new system to replace the old one, so Nayat was right on that instance. Simple Tabiru would only return broken soma into the state it existed in before Shaamta's interference with its normal functions.

"Let's go visit Dorgu's soma memory now. We need to take a look at an Alima Eni specimen. What made them free of hunger for our blood. Especially those very first examples."

"I suspect they also suffered from hunger, but since they always had a constant supply of the black blood, they didn't show it," Nayat said. "They kept the Surani on a tight leash, because they had total control of the supply and knew very well how it worked for them. But if the Baali had learned the Alima Eni were so dependent on it, they would rebel earlier. So maybe they played the 'wise advisor' or 'parent' types to the Baali to keep their state a secret."

"The Alima Eni made the Surani what they are, so of course they knew how it worked. So I'm not so sure about the hunger," I said. "After all, when the ancient Rawani from our homeworld tried to drink the Danna blood, they didn't become hungry for it. Sure, some of them died because their bodies weren't ready to process it, but still."

"Oh, I didn't think of that," Nayat said. "You are probably right."

"Still, with their oversized egos and monumental ambitions, the Alima Eni were dependent on it too. That was a need far greater than simple bodily function." Their whole civilization was built on that need.

We were about to delve deeper, but at this moment I noticed some commotion aboard Gal Runagh. Leru was looking for Nayat with a firm belief that some of the Surani had done something to the girl.

"Oh," Nayat said, upset. "Mom is yelling at people. I better go back. So you'll have to go further alone tonight, Falaha Yaur Sangu."

"I never thought family life would be so hard on me," I replied. "Let's continue our contemplation later. Now run."

"The Danna and the Medans are not the Baali and these differences are deeply ingrained into their cores," Nayat said with a sigh, and promptly disconnected, hurrying to dive down below to her mom.

I remained alone.

Fine, I will finish this later. Now I was needed down below on the deck. Diplomacy and Leru were things deeply alien to each other.