hotmtlnovel Book 2: Chapter 68: Recording
Book 2: Chapter 68: Recording
Book 2: Chapter 68: Recording
Jacques
September 2212
Delta Pavonis
Guppy popped into VR. [New memory core is online]
“Good. It was getting a little tight. Have the drones resume the full program.”
Guppy nodded and disappeared.
Instead, I operated as a passive observer. Our technology was much better than the Victorian-era Pav sciences, but even so, things didn’t always go perfectly. There’d been a couple of sightings, and Pav society now had their own version of conspiracy theorists and flying-saucer nuts.
I picked a house at random in the town of Mheijrkva and set up surveillance. Gnat-sized roamers installed cameras and microphones in the house. I felt dirty, like some kind of voyeur, but reminded myself that I was preserving the record of a culture that would likely not exist in another decade.
* * *
The Los family group seemed fairly average, as Pav families went. Six adults, split evenly between the genders, plus nine children at various ages. The Pav didn’t have a large need for privacy, so bedroom organization was based mostly on available space. Furniture tended to move around on a daily basis, depending on mood.
Meals were held at specific times, simply because of the logistics of preparing food for that many people. But there was no organization that I could see. My best metaphor was a birthday party attended by two-year-olds—a total free-for-all.
The adults held an assortment of jobs. The Pav didn’t seem to care about stratification of social classes. The matriarch of the house, Da Hazjiar Los, was on Mheirkva’s town council. She seemed intelligent and, for a Pav, very level-headed. I made a point of tagging her for special handling, if and when.
I settled in for some long-term spying on people’s lives.