"You think if people find this they might get pulled into whatever Pantaleon got wrapped up in?" I asked. I wondered if in my younger years I would have fit the bill Dalken was describing. "If this is out there already, what exactly can any of us do? Do we ask explorers not to explore? Not even the DRC was able to keep people out of restricted regions of the cavern. How do you propose we do it?"
"Information control," Dalken replied. Terry did his best to hide a look of shock mixed with anger? Or maybe it was something else. "I know. I don’t much care for it either, but it's the best option for the time being," Dalken continued, adjusting his hat. "The truth is, we don't know enough yet to find a real solution, but the appearance of the Hopi Spiral has forced our hand."
"I guess discovery of this Triple Shell wouldn't go over do well in the wake of everything so far; especially with D'ni Olympics right around the corner."
"Quite," Dalken agreed, flipping through several other KI shots. Among them I picked out collapsed buildings in the cavern, an Eder Tomahn, a magma filled chamber, and the interior of the Path of the Shell as well as a few other things unrecognizable. "I still have a good chunk of investigating left to do, but Jessie and I felt it was important to emphasize our reasoning for keeping everything close to the chest.”
"I've already spoken with Jeremy Reinold," Jessie added. "He was about to share what he knew with D'veeta. A close call, but I stopped him before their meet."
"And in the mean time," Terry began. "In the mean time, what are we supposed to do? It's one thing to say business as usual. But we now have compromised positions and an administration that I'm half wishing could hear this whole meeting through the wall." He had a point. I could probably slip back in well enough; Meghan would grow tired of my dodging her questions, but Terry had to answer to Mister Magic and the rest of the Grey Hats.
“Well, if you did decide to go tell somebody, it’s not like we could really stop you at this
point,” Dalken noted rather bluntly. He pulled the brim of his hat further down his forehead. “But if any of you remember what happened the last time someone was in real danger and the whole cavern was in a riot, then you know why we need to find alternatives until we have more information.” He paused to take a deep breath. “We have to be careful about who we bring in on this. Lives could very well be at stake here.”
“I’m not so interested in telling anybody about this, this, conspiracy as much as I’m interested in how you plan to convince Mr Magic that my record is clean.” Terry dropped his crossed arms and raised them to emphasize his point. “Black Hats. That’s what you’ve made us.”
“For the record, I wasn’t in on that particular detail,” Dalken defended. He started sending posts and photos to the imager to erase the more sensitive material. “But I have picked up a few tricks over the years relating to the KI and Lattice registries from a friend of mine. Dunno if it’ll be enough to fool the Grey Hats, but it should throw folks off your trail for a while at least.”
“That’s all I ask,” Terry replied. He took a deep breath and twirled his hand briefly in the air while speaking. “I’ll keep my lid shut on the issue at hand. I assume you’ll need my KI too. I’ll leave it with Jessie here soon. Now, I think I’m going to retire to the surface. I’m not looking forward to the morning.” And with that, he reltoed out.
“That’s probably as good an idea as any,” I said looking back to the two of them. “Before I leave, I gotta know. Maybe I don’t want to know, but I got the sense that there was more than one of these Triple Spiral things that you found. What’s your plan? Remove them somehow? Ya know, what? Don’t tell me. I need some rest.” I opened my Relto. “I’ll be in touch,” I said before linking away.
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