The Venus that they called 'No' interrupted the two soulmate's experiment. They were testing the hypothesis that Yes would eventually talk herself out of words. They'd found that if she believed she was alone, she stopped talking. Putting anything in her stopped her talking. Covering her mouth in any way stopped her talking. But they had been going at this current test for hours and she was still going strong. They had been about to admit defeat so the disturbance was no big issue.
It was still an hour or two before their breeding timeout was up so it came as no surprise that they were led to the class pen wing of the sty. They wondered if they were getting some data on the parasite they would breed next or some other boring info dump, like yesterday's--on the history of Xactos.
Instead, the pen No showed them to had two large armchairs facing several large screens. Every screen had an identical countdown indicating they had a couple of minutes before whatever would start. The two sows selected an armchair and climbed in, snuggling up to wait.
The middle screen flickered to light. They saw a stage with a lectern and dozens of microphones. Other screens lit up, one by one, showing differing views across a vast audience. Tens of thousands of blue Vingorian faces, all chatting among themselves as they too waited. One screen had a drone view that swept the vast auditorium, zooming in on certain people who were perhaps well known.
0-10-0 guessed that maybe it would be a music thing and 1-0-1 corrected her, explaining this was the Vingorian senate and these people were Vingorian politicians and Federation press. 1-0-1 noted, however, that this space was rarely used. It looked like every Vingorian judge, mayor, and senior official was in attendance. Police and military leaders, senior doctors, and scientists that advised the government all waited with elected officials. Hundreds of journalists from a dozen species waited noisily in their dedicated holding area at the back. Every space was filled. As many people were standing as sitting, thronging stairways and aisles.
Eventually a wizened old Vingorian with white hair and faded blue-grey skin appeared from the wings and approached the lectern. As the cameras zoomed in on his sombre, tear-stained face, magnified for the audience on giant screens above the stage, a hush fell across the crowds.
"My name is Jakert d'Atainia. And I am president... of the senate... overview committee for... sorry."
The man didn't finish, his weak, breathless voice broken by a desperate sob.
"I can't. Too much. Help me..."
Two confused aides rushed to him, closely followed by a face the sows knew very well. The Professor. The group pulled back from the lectern as the Professor led the man, desperately clinging to her, to the wings of the stage. She returned on her own.
"Thank you for your patience." Her powerful voice silenced the room. Two rambunctious sows or sixty thousand folks who made a noise for living, it made no difference.
"It has been over a hundred years since I last graced these great halls. I was an old woman then too. We have a galactic audience, so an introduction is due. People call me 'The Professor'. I call myself lots of things--and yet 'The Professor' is what those closest to me use and thus the name I answer to. I work in pharmaceuticals. I head the executive board of the Pharma wing of Xactos on behalf of its parent organisation, Xactos Genesis.
"Thank you all for taking time out of your busy schedules and at such short notice to be here today. I have read the rumours as to why I might be coming out of my laboratories to speak to you. This is not regarding a new Xactos site here on the Vingorian homeworld. It is not my retirement. It is not some grand new medical treatment. None of that would warrant a meeting like this.
"It is far, far more important."
The Professor took a shaky breath. The first sign of nerves she had shown. She looked out across a sea of expectant faces.
"I am here today on behalf of Xactos Genesis and the Xactos Prime Family. A family that has supported my work unwaveringly for nearly three hundred years.
"Ten days ago I broke the Vingorian genetic lock. An example of the lost genetic sequence and the key to decrypt the sequence were delivered to the Vingorian President, Jakert d'Atainia, one hour ago."
The screens above flicked to footage of two familiar sows walking arm in arm along a beach, lost in each other's company. The blue sow's tail flicked and roamed, occasionally wrapping around her friend's leg. The crowd was silent for another disbelieving second. And then, as a single plaintive wail rang from the crowd, chaos descended, and the masses cascaded into a howled grieving release.
The imagery switched to a small medical room where 0-10-0's mate lay face down on a bed. A nurse was struggling to take measurements of the Vingorian's swishing tail. Her hair was pulled aside, revealing the exotic striping down her back and a long pointed ear was clearly visible as she chatted animatedly with someone off-screen.
"I know you cannot fathom this news. The shock will take days to settle and years to clear. I will add details for our wider audience that you will be able to view when you have the capacity.
"Firstly, any groups that seek to exploit the Vingorian people in the next ten days forfeit all Xactos contracts, including with our PowerCore division. You will also incur our wrath. The missing gene sequence key is a gift from Xactos to the Vingorian people and the galactic community will respect that.
"Secondly, for context, the Vingorian people had their gene lock virally distributed around six thousand years ago, before we left homeworld. The perpetrator was duly lynched; however, the damage was done. Every Vingorian born after that lacked their tail. Read your history for more details. Much is conjecture from that time in our past.
"Next, historians have long speculated what else we lost with our tails. We have some answers, as can be seen in the clip above. It appears we lost our stripes and our ears were truncated. The example you see, however, is not indicative. She is the first and only cracked Vingorian. We need more data before we know for sure. Her hair was her own creation, for example, and that would have overruled content in the missing sequence. Better geneticists than I can uncover the details.
"Lastly, I'll be here and available for several days while things settle. The protocol for these gatherings would usually allow for questions from the floor. However, that will not work today so we will go straight to press questions."
The video zoomed out to capture the press section at the back. It rose up and floated down over the assembly's heads to sit in a clear area in front of the stage. Over a thousand people occupied the space. They were sorting themselves out, with the minority non-Vingorian species struggling to gather the Vingorian journalists and care for them. The Professor waited calmly, adding guidance here and there to help where she could. With some semblance of control established, she continued.
"Thank you to all those helping. I was going to start with a warning to be respectful and perhaps some threats. Seems that's not needed and you all understand."
The Professor had relaxed her tone and posture, stepping down from the lectern to sit on the edge of the dais. The two sows agreed it was strange seeing her in clothes, without her lab coat. They weren't particularly interested in proceedings but if the Professor thought they should watch, they'd watch. And it was cool getting to see her.
"The algorithm will highlight you; you all know the score. Ask away when you glow."
A humanoid man lit up. 0-10-0 had no idea what species he was.
"Good afternoon, Professor, Char Smeng from ENF Watt Primetime. How long have you been working on breaking this lock?"
"Good question, Char. I have not been working on breaking the lock. Like most Vingorians, I assumed it was unbreakable. Hell, even the humans couldn't break it. Some of the... tools I have been developing struggle with the presence of the lock, though. I have long sought to bypass it somehow so that the Vingorians I work with can have equality with humans in terms of treatments.
"Recent discoveries in other areas led to the inadvertent breakthrough. The human you saw on the beach earlier has a possibly unique trait allowing her to operate certain biotools with great finesse. She didn't know the lock was unbreakable. She pointed out I was an idiot and that breaking the lock was the solution. I gave her permission to try, knowing she would fail. Two minutes and forty-seven seconds later, the lock was broken.
"The Vingorian you see behind me was in the tool at the time. Much more detail and I would breach my NDAs. Next question."
"Hi, Professor, I'm Galan Pood from CMNF Angorak Networks. My Vingorian colleagues would have an obvious question. How can this be distributed? Specialist insemination procedures are only available to the wealthiest. You have the tech to apply some kind of fix retroactively. What do you propose?"
"Another good question. Thank you, Galan. Firstly, the technologies I have in my laboratories are all prototypes. They are developed in parallel to the operations of our farms. They do not represent either a scalable, saleable technology or one that would ever be approved by the Federation's Drug Administration. Breaking the lock is a physical gift for future generations of Vingorians. For those currently alive, we will have the joy of seeing our children scamper around, the way all Vingorians should always have.
"The path you suggest, commonly referred to as 'designer babies,' is the only viable option. There is no reason for this simple technology to be expensive. The companies that offer it just prefer to avoid the cost and complexity of scaling. Something that would hurt their short-term profits. The current Vingorian administration can solve this and Xactos is offering its procurement specialists to help, if requested. If everyone in this room gave up five percent of their pay, the costs would be covered.
