Swamped

You find you have a lot of questions about Simone, starting with what the heck she did to that crow-thing.

Chances are, though, that's a meeting a lot of people are going to take an interest in. And indeed, as Yvonne steps out, she says she needs to hold another meeting. You ask if you can sit in, and she doesn't object.

Rudolph opts to go off and see how Pubert's doing. You're not sure who handled with that particular duty while you were out; apparently, that was left to some other greblings with combat training.

A few minutes later, you're sitting in Yvonne's tent, along with Long, Rider, Theodore, some grebling named Boris you haven't really met, and Simone of course.

Simone starts explaining what she saw - and, more intriguingly, what she heard - while she was captured. You're more than a little surprised when she mentions mechanical people - especially with that glimpse you had of a mechanical hand when you got into a fight with those Dune Wanderers.

You hadn't really brought up what you saw with anyone, so now seems the time to raise the point. After all, you can't help but wonder if there's a connection.

"Human-sized greblings with mechanical bodies?" Yvonne says. "You didn't mention this before."

"We were distracted by the sandstorm afterwards," Rider says. "And then we were busy. I barely noticed the wounded one myself, as I was in a hurry to get away from the scene. I imagine Corvus got a much closer look."

"Yeah. I have no idea what in the hells those Wanderers even are," you chime in. "But apparently someone else is making bodies just like theirs, or close enough anyways. Guess I wouldn't know the details of how they work."

"Speaking of that, I tried to remember what I could of the original voice box design, in case Theodore could make anything of it," Simone says. She puts down a doodle of it in front of him. "They took my notebook and tore out everything related to the voice box, but luckily they thought I'd taken the amnesiac, so I was able to put down what I could remember."

"Unfortunately, it looks like you missed something important," Theodore grumbles. "This design doesn't make any sense as it is. I can't see how it would work at all."

"What do you mean?" you ask. "I'm no machinist, but I'm curious now."

Theodore glances at you. He seems slightly disappointed.

"I'll try to explain it in simple terms. There's several problems, but I'll start with the biggest one."