13th February 2013
16:19 GMT -5
A tiny green fleck appears from the depths of space; the new H'lvenite Green Lantern. His fur is more of a red colour than Ch'p's grey and lacks his backwards-sweeping jaw line styling. He
flies around us in a circle,
his eyes glowing as he
has his ring bring him up to speed.
He takes it fairly well, considering.
"Hello there. Has something happened to Lantern Ch'p?
"
"His wife gave birth. He's taken a short leave of absence while I handle the Sector alone. I am
Green Lantern B'dg. And you are the Orange Illustres and New Gods of New Genesis."
Vykin nods. "We would like to visit New Berrith."
"What for? Tourism? We don't allow hunting."
"We are trying to locate the Indigo Lantern Doctor Ub'x. The Illustres has given our friend Orion a red power ring, and it has strongly affected his mind. We-."
"Indigo? Red-? There are
more Lantern Corps?
Why wasn't I-?" His whole body
jerks so that he's facing me. "Why is there a note on your file telling me to avoid thinking about anything that you do?"
"Because my actions tend to be strange and I have little regard for the mental equanimity of the people around me.
"
"Are there..? Really two more Lantern Corps?"
"I've only met one person with an indigo power ring and one person with a red power ring.
"
"That's… A little reassuring. And you will-" He returns his attention to the New Gods. "-gain the information you seek
how?"
"I…" Dreamer perks up a little. "I can call up images from their minds and their pasts. Since I know what Doctor Ub'x looks like, I should be able to find anything they know about him quite quickly."
Moonrider leans forward. "Do you know anything about what he was doing? Has the Green Lantern investigation discovered anything?"
"The current investigation… There isn't one. The Orange Illustres-" He glances at me. "-is the only witness that he was even
on Ranx. We haven't seen Ub'x for
years, and good riddance to him. I can authorise you to land, and I will, on the condition that you share all of your discoveries with the Green Lantern Corps."
Dreamer looks awkward. "Not everything that I discover will have anything to do-."
"All
relevant discoveries. The ones relating to where Doctor Ub'x went."
"I…"
She looks at Vykin, then Lightray, then for a brief moment me.
"I'm.. not…"
Vykin takes pity on her. "We have no interest in apprehending him. We need him to help our friend."
"And all of his victims across this Sector deserve to know that he's not coming
back. I don't need your help to beat him."
"You misunderstand. Until Orion is purified, we will protect Doctor Ub'x from
you."
"Oh. So
that's how it is." He tilts his head towards me. "How about you, Illustres?"
"I'm reasonably confident that if I locate
him, I'll locate at least one other Indigo. And that's all I really need. Is he due to be executed?
"
"He hasn't been tried yet.
Probably not. Compared to what the berrith did, other crimes tend to pale into insignificance."
"Being an Indigo Lantern is effectively a lifetime community service order. I suggest that you try talking to him as he is
now before making any hard decisions.
"
"How exactly is it community service?"
"The Indigo-. As far as I
know, the Indigo light turns the Lantern's mind towards compassion, and tends to blot out everything else. Whatever drove him before, it's now not a consideration.
"
"As far as you know."
"If we don't find him it's not an issue. If we do, you can speak to him yourself. If you're not satisfied… Not to blow my own horn here, but you can't take me in a fight, so you'll have to wait until my homeworld is free, at which point he stops being my problem.
"
"That's… Reasonable.
Your homeworld-." He blinks in apparent surprise. "Why is all information relating to you homeworld restricted?"
"Anti-Life.
"
"
What is-? That's restricted too."
Lightray nods. "For a good reason. It is a memetic hazard."
"If I can't know what it is, at least tell me what it
does."
"Weaponised clinical depression.
"
"It's a psychic weapon?"
"It's a psychic weapon that completely bypasses psychic defences and can infect entire planets at once.
"
He… Grooms his whiskers for a moment as he thinks it through.
"Alright. I can delay justice. Stopping a weapon like that is more urgent and important than arresting Ub'x immediately."
"Thank you.
"
"I'm
transmitting the authorisation now. Follow me down. Follow my
precise flight path. If you deviate from it too greatly the emplaced weapons will fire."
Vykin nods. "We will comply."
Checking those weapons by ring-scan… Yeah. If their Mother Box told them where to appear, they
could evade them. Lightray can fly faster than they can track. And I'm
me. But that's not what this is about. We're not trying to conquer New Berrith or this region. Heck, I've had enough trouble with the Spider Guild. I don't want to take on another civilisation of cannibals until I'm sure that the system I have for rehabilitation can
work.
I let the New Gods take the lead as we follow B'dg down. I guess it's an assumption that I've never questioned, cannibalism being a bad idea. For humans it's a good way to get prion disease, but I suppose there's no real reason why that should be the same for all species. I just thought, you know,
socially, it would tend to get weeded out. Because most intelligent species evolve on planets where they're the only intelligent thing, and most of them are humanoid. My brain tells me not to eat tamaraneans and thanagarians using the same parts that tell me not to eat humans because it's too old to distinguish between them. So berrith must be mostly fine with eating other berrith, and somehow there wasn't a social divide in favour of non-people-eaters where their societies outperformed the people-eating-people, and there wasn't any sort of disease transmission as a result…
"Lantern B'dg, are the berrith predators or scavengers?
"
"Most predators are happy to scavenge. It's less demanding in terms of energy."
"Sure, but there are some species who
mostly scavenge, and some-.
"
"We don't know. The berrith made no attempt to record their own history outside the self-aggrandising monuments of some of their alphas. No one wasted time studying the natural history of their original homeworld. Some scientists have tried to draw conclusions based on their physiology, but it's all speculative. What are you
planning?"
"Nothing. Just trying to gather information.
"
He
glances back. "Your file suggests that you might not be telling the truth."
"You needed to check the file?
"