The Starlight Lancer

Chapter 119: Mystery Remnant

"Do glyphs dream?"

—Philosopher Dona Truian

"Wha—what was that, little buddy?" Zaina asked, thinking she probably heard Gizmo wrong. She hadn't been listening to him that closely.

"Is there anything I can assist you with, Giramodo?"

Baeus' hover-bed tilted toward Zaina. "Is he referring to—"

She met his eyes and nodded, and then turned her attention back to Gizmo. "Actually, yes—can you access your memory?"

"Of course, Master Giramodo. Ah, it appears there is—zzz. Reset complete. Hello, Master. May I please have your preferred name?"

Zaina grabbed his sides. "What? No—go back! Un-reset!"

Baeus looked on with a thoughtful expression. "Is that the first time he's done that?"

"Yeah," she said. "Every time before this he's asked for my name."

"Interesting," Baeus said. "It appears your glyph may not have been properly wiped."

"Well, what do I do? I can't get rid of him."

"Would that I knew more about glyphs," he replied. "Have you heard of Valsi's—"

"That's where I just came from," she said, sighing in defeat. "She said there's only a few people who could fix him."

"Huh," Baeus said, though his voice was distant.

"You have an idea?"

"I might," Baeus said. "My mentor, Ghlomodius, mentioned once that he'd worked with a computation scientist to recover data from an old Songa storage facility. Maybe that's a place to start."

She shook her head. "So what? They're not on Kaado."

Baeus blinked a few times, and then said in a low voice, "Y—you do know we can leave if we want to, right?"

"I don't have a ship."

"The Order has plenty of rentals for the business of lancers and scholars," he said. "We'd probably have to be vague about our reason for going—if anyone finds out Gizmo's wipe didn't take, the Order will demand that protocol be followed—in this case, a full wipe, or more likely decommission."

She pressed Gizmo against her chest. "What—why?"

"I think their assumption is that the tampered data would represent a threat to the Order—that it's possibly something malicious, and therefore better erased wholesale."

"It couldn't—no, that's impossible! Gir would never do something malicious to the Order."

Baeus sighed. "I believe that, too. But the Order has believed in lancers before, and sometimes they've been disappointed. I can already hear Scholar Suprema Dol Verip's lecture: "The protocols exist to provide vigilance, which has helped this Order stand since blah blah blah.""

"You—you aren't going to tell anyone about him, are you?"

He chuckled in reply.

"What's so funny? This isn't a joke!"

"No, it's—it's nothing."

"Tell me!"

"Okay, fine," he said. "I've met four half-marked in my time as a scholar, and each and every one of you has been completely different. What I find amusing is the trait you all share: trust issues."

Zaina felt a little called out, but tried not to show it. "You'd have them too, if—can scholars even get the mark?"

Baeus replied, "It's believed they can, but we don't have any evidence of a scholar ever becoming a marked. I can't even speculate as to what would happen."