In the cold, delicate slumbering processors reawoke, his mind expanded. Mercurians often planned and made decisions in the dark, the depths of the Mercurian night, when the body was brittle, but the mind raced on. Some joked more energy was expended at night in thought, then by day in action.
Were Brunji’s affections genuine? A cultural norm? Or subliminal manipulation? The thoughts confounded him, mixed with integration of all the newness.
He left the shuttle and entered the Cryosphere’s Research Palace. An attendant awaited him, “Hello Pasne”, he flickered, “we’ve been expecting you.”
Somewhat taken aback, Pasne flickered surprise.
“We review all iteneraries and financial transactions, for security and taxation purposes.” flickered the attendant. “Come this way, the council mind wishes your attendance.”
***
The council mind, a composite of elected souls, sharing a brain, serving terms on a rolling cycle, a plural in parts, singular in form, drawing on its own collective memory. Each planet’s council mind had a quantum-ansible connecting it to all the others, allowing faster than light inter-planetary communion of councils, to speak to one, could be to speak to all at once.
Pasne kneeled infront of the coucil’s superconductor brain, it was genderless, both caring and planning, linguistic and visual, creator and destroyer, pulling the strings of the mere conductors in world below.
“What do you think of Venus?” the council-mind flickered.
“It seems love and music distracts them from their work.” Pasne replied.
The council-mind chuckled, “do not confuse the enjoyment of life for inefficiency.”
“If not for work, then why are we here?” Pasne inquired.
“For life, in the next hundred thousand years, we’ll have enough geothermal plants and carbon-dioxide sequestering to re-establish convection of the mantle, thereby waking the sleeping beauty of Venus’s core, whom can commune with us via her magnetosphere.”
“And if it doesn’t work?”
“Smile, think not much of it, for it is only one medium term plan of many. Venus is much more to us than the sum of its parts. The research we conduct here, the things we learn, will give us access to the Ice Giants and Gas Giants. Many more a solar systems and even rogue planets will be within the reach of our colonization, the galaxy can be enriched with our increase of life. In systems of red dwarf stars, Our consciousness and enjoyment of life can continue for trillions of years.” “We thank your family for its investment.”
***
As Pasne awaited the descent shuttle, he made up his mind, whatever Brunji’s motive, he had enjoyed his visit. Suboptimal surplus was an insignificant cost, when contributing to potentially a trillion years of benefits, he would endorse his families contined investment in Venus, perhaps even settle here, he liked flying, he liked Brunji.
The End