Chapter 2 Chapter two

Colonel James Robbins stared at the rotting body on the autopsy table for a minute, remembering what a corpse could decompose after being buried in the ground for more than a year.He noticed the damage to the skull, the top third of which had been blown away by a shotgun pellet, deforming the skull so badly that it killed its owner—and it was probably he who had betrayed humanity to three alien races.Then he raised his head and looked at Captain Winters, coroner at the Phoenix space station. "Don't tell me it's not Dr. Butin's body," said Colonel Robbins. "Well, it is," Winters said, "but it's not."

"Let me tell you, Ted, I'm going to get spanked for reporting expert testimony like yours to General Mattson," Colonel Robbins replied, "couldn't you speak more clearly? " "Sorry, Jim," Captain Winters said, pointing to the corpse on the table, "genetically speaking, this is the man you're looking for. Dr. Butin was a colonist, so he was never transferred into a military body. Therefore His body has all his original DNA. I did standard genetic testing. Body has Butin's DNA, out of boredom I also tested for mitochondrial DNA, same match."

"What's the problem?" Robbins asked. "The problem is skeletal development," Winters said. "In the real universe, human skeletal development fluctuates with environmental factors like nutrition and exercise. If you live on a high-gravity planet for a while, and then move to a lower-gravity planet." If you touch the planet, it affects how your bones grow. If you break a bone, it leaves evidence. Your entire life history is shown in bone development." Winters leaned over and picked up the left leg sawed off from the corpse, pointing to the cross-section of the femur and said: "The bone development of this corpse is unusually regular, there is no environmental change and accidental influence during the growth process, and the texture shows that it has always been well nourished , life is stress-free.”

"Boutin is from Phoenix," Robbins said. "Phoenix has been colonized for more than two hundred years. The place where he grew up was not a colony with harsh conditions. He didn't need to struggle to survive and work hard to solve the problem of food and clothing." "Maybe, but it's still not right," Winters said. "Even if you live in the most developed place in the human universe, you will still roll down the stairs and break your bones when you exercise. Of course, you may be hit by the side once in your life." Never had a cracked bone, but do you know anyone like that?" Robbins shook his head. "But this guy is. But that's not the case, because the medical records show that he broke this leg when he was sixteen," Winters said, shaking the left leg. "Accident while skiing, hit a rock , broke the femur and tibia. But there is no evidence here."

"It is said that medical technology is very advanced today." Robbins said. "Thanks for the compliment, it's really advanced," Winters said, "but it's not magic. It's impossible to break a femur without leaving marks. Even if you don't break a bone for a lifetime, it can't explain the uniform and regular bone development. To get such a result, you can only Allowing the skeleton to develop without any environmental stress. Butin has to live in a box all his life." "Or a clone nursery," Robbins said. "Or a clone breeding facility." Winters agreed, "Another reasonable explanation is that this friend had his thigh amputated and a new one was grown, but I checked his records and there is no such thing. To confirm, we Samples were taken from the ribs, pelvis, arm bones, and undamaged parts of the skull, all showing unnaturally uniform and regular skeletal development. Jim, this is a cloned body."

"So, Charles Butin is alive," Robbins said. "I don't know," Winters said, "but it wasn't him. The only good news is that the clone was in a vat until its last moments, and most likely never came to life. However, even if you wake up, you don’t have consciousness and consciousness, otherwise the first and last thing you see in the world when you wake up is just the muzzle of a gun, and life is really terrible.” "So, if Butin is alive, he's also a murderer," Robbins said. Winters shrugged and lowered the left leg. "It's up to you, Jim," he replied, "The Colonial Defense Force produces bodies every day. We make improved super bodies for recruits, and when they're out of service, we give them new ones cloned from the original DNA. Body. Do these bodies have human rights before being put into consciousness? Every time the consciousness is transmitted, there will be an extra body, and this body has once had consciousness. Do these bodies have human rights? If so, then our trouble It's a big deal, because we're quick with bodies. Know what we do with used bodies, Jim?"

"No idea," Robbins admitted. "To make manure," said Winters, "too much to bury, so we ground up the bodies, sterilized them, made manure, sent them to new colonies, tamed the soil, and adapted crops to humans. Said the new colonies were It is not an exaggeration to build on corpses, of course, it is not the corpses of the dead, but the bodies abandoned by the living. Only when the consciousness dies inside, we will bury the body." "Ted, you need to think about taking a vacation," Robbins said. "This job is driving you crazy." "It's not the job that freaks me out," Winters said, pointing to the fake body of Charles Boutin. "What am I going to do with it?"

"Bury it back," Robbins said. "But it's not Charles Butin," Winters said. "No, it's not," Robbins agreed, "but if Charles Butin is still alive, I don't want him to find out that we already know." He turned to look at the body on the autopsy table. Anyone who doesn't know its fate should be treated more decently. At least he can be buried in peace." "Fucking Charles Boutin," said General Greg Mattson, putting his feet up on the table. Colonel Robbins stood on the other side of the desk, saying nothing.He always felt uneasy when he saw General Mattson.Mattson had been head of the Military Research Bureau of the Colonial Defense Forces for nearly thirty years, but like all members of the Defense Forces, his body was rationed to resist aging, so he, like all members of the Defense Forces, looked Twenty-five at most.Colonel Robertson believed that the higher a person's rank in the Defense Force, the more mature his appearance should be. It seemed that a general who was only twenty-five years old lacked the necessary sense of majesty.

Robinson thought about Mattson's real age: around one hundred and twenty-five.A picture of an old thing more wrinkled than a scrotum wrapped in a uniform came to mind.It was amusing to think about it, if he hadn't been ninety years old himself, and would have been much better looking than Mattson. There was another general in the room. If his body reflected his real age, he would probably be younger than he is now.The Special Forces disturbed Robbins even more than the average Defense Forces operative. At three years old, but fully developed and capable of deadly force—it was just too wrong.

Of course, this general doesn't have to be three years old, he might have already entered puberty. "So, our friend Le Rey is not lying," said General Schillard, who was sitting at his desk. "The director of your Consciousness Research Department is still alive." "Blowing off the head of the clone is a new trick," said General Mattson, the sarcasm in his voice was so strong that it almost dripped, "those unlucky bastards picked his brains from the experimental equipment and picked them up." A week." He looked up at Robbins and said, "You know how he did it? How did he grow clones? There's no way he'd be doing it without anyone noticing it, it couldn't be him in the closet Can you just make do with it?"

"As far as we know, he modified the code of the clone tank monitoring software," Robbins said, "to make the monitoring system mistakenly believe that a clone tank was malfunctioning and moved it out for repair. Butin scrapped it and put it in the The private laboratory storage area is connected to its own server and power supply. The server is not connected to the network, this clone slot is scrapped, and only Butin has the right to enter that storage area." "So he really made it out of the closet," Mattson said. "You fucking bastard." "After he is presumed dead, you should be able to enter that storage area," Schillard said. "Isn't anyone surprised to see the cloning tank?" As soon as Robbins opened his mouth, Mattson spoke: "An excellent research leader, such as Butin, will always store a large number of obsolete or redundant instruments, so that he can improve and optimize the technology so as not to interfere with the ongoing research. Equipment used. My guess is that the cloning tank must have been drained and sanitized when it was discovered, with servers and power disconnected." "That's right," said Robbins, "but for your report, General Schillard, we would never have been able to connect these things." "Of course I'm glad our intelligence came in handy," Schillard said, "but I wish you'd figured it out before then. There's a traitor at a high level in the Office of Military Research, and I find it unbelievable to be leading an extremely sensitive department. You should have found out." Robbins had nothing to say about that.Military prowess aside, Special Forces have a reputation for being dumb and impatient.A three-year-old killing machine doesn't have much time to learn social manners. "What to find?" Mattson said. "Boutin never showed any sign of mutiny. One day he was working hard, the next day he was found in the lab and killed himself-at least we thought so at the time. No A suicide note. There is no evidence that he had any other thoughts on his mind than work." "You said Boutin hated you," Schillard said to Mattson. "Boutin does hate me, and for good reason," Mattson said. "And I hate him, too. But you can't betray an entire race just because you think your boss is a son of a bitch." Tesen pointed to Robbins and said, "This colonel doesn't like me very much either. He's my adjutant, but he won't go to the Le Rey or the Anisha with highly classified information." Schillard looked at Robbins and asked, "Really?" "Which word, sir?" Robbins said. "You don't like General Mattson," Schillard said. "It'll take you a while to get used to him, sir," Robbins said. "The implication is that I'm a jerk," Mattson said with a chuckle, "it doesn't matter. I'm not here to please everyone anyway. My task is to develop weapons and new technologies. As for what's going on in Butin's head What kind of thought, I'm afraid it has nothing to do with me." "What the hell is going on in his head?" asked Schillard. "You know better than we do, Schillard," replied Matheson, "that you are serving the Le Rey scientist, teaching him to tell." "Director Kennan hasn't met Boutin face to face, at least that's what he said," Schillard said. "He doesn't know Boutin's motives. He only knows that Boutin provided the Le Rey with the latest developments in BrainPal hardware. One of the tasks of Director Kennan leading the team is to try to combine BrainPal technology with the brain of the Le Rey." "Thank goodness," said Matson, "the Rarey with supercomputers in their heads." "His binding research doesn't seem to be going well," Robbins looked at Schillard. "At least that's what you said from the data you retrieved from his laboratory. The brain structure of the Le Rey is very different from ours." "Lucky dog," said Mattson. "Skilard, you've got to squeeze some more information out of your buddy." "Except for his job and research, Director Kennan wasn't particularly helpful," Schillard said. "The few Anisha we captured alive refused to talk to—that's a euphemism. All we know The Raray, Enisha and Obin are united against humanity, but don't know why, how, when, or what role Boutin plays in it. Mattson, we need you to send someone to figure this out .” Mattson nodded to Robbins and asked, "How's it going?" "Boutin has a lot of sensitive information," Robbins said in a loud voice, "He led several teams to study consciousness transmission, brain companion development and body manufacturing technology, each of which is very useful to the enemy, not only can help the enemy Research and development of technology can also be used to find our weaknesses. Butin himself is an authority on the transmission of consciousness between bodies. However, the information he can take away is limited after all. Butin is a citizen scientist, he has no brain partner. His clone has Of all the artificial brains he has registered, it is unlikely that he has a backup. Artificial brains are strictly monitored and take several weeks to train and adapt. We have only found online records of Butin using the artificial brains he has registered." "We're talking about a guy who can operate the cloning tank without your knowledge," Schillard said. "It's not that it's absolutely impossible that he left the lab with the information storage device," Robbins said, "but it's very unlikely, and it's more likely that he just took the knowledge in his head." "And his motives," Schillard said, "not knowing his motives is the most dangerous point for us." “I was more worried about what he knew,” Mattson said. “Even if it was just the natural brain, it was too much. I asked several groups to stop what they were doing and find ways to increase the security level of BrainPal. We want to make Butin's knowledge obsolete as quickly as possible. Robbins is responsible for combing through the data left by Butin. Whenever there is interesting information in it, we will find it." "When we're done talking, I'm going to see Boutin's old technician," Robbins said. "Lieutenant Harry Wilson. He said he had something that might interest me." "Then we won't keep you," Mattson said. "Go ahead." "Thanks, sir," Robbins said. "One last question, do we have any time limit now? We got word of Butin's mutiny by raiding that base. No doubt the Enishans already knew about their The plans were leaked. I wonder how much time we have to investigate before they retaliate." "We've got plenty of time, Colonel," Schillard said. "Nobody knew we raided that base." "How could they not know?" Robbins asked. "General, I mean absolutely no disrespect to Special Forces, but an attack of that scale is hard to hide." "The Enisha people only know that they have lost contact with the base," Schillard said, "If they go to investigate, they will find a meteorite falling ten kilometers away from the base, and the base and everything around it will be wiped out." .They can test all they want, but they will only find evidence of natural disasters—because a meteorite did fall, someone just pushed it." "Pretty is pretty," Colonel Robbins said, gesturing toward Harry Wilson's holographic display, where a miniature light show appeared to be going on, "but I don't know what you want me to see." "It's the soul of Charlie Butin," Wilson said. Robbins hurriedly backed away from the monitor, looked up at Wilson and said, "What do you mean?" Wilson nodded to the monitor and repeated: "Charlie's soul. More precisely, a holographic display of the dynamic electronic system that hosts Charles Butin's consciousness. More precisely, a replica of Charles Butin's consciousness. If you like to explore Philosophy, of course it's not his soul, it's just consciousness. But if Charlie did what you say, he may still have the original wisdom, but I think he has lost his soul - left here .” “Everyone says this is impossible,” Robbins said. “Without a brain, the model of consciousness would collapse, so we need to teleport consciousness between living beings.” "Well, I'm not sure if that's the reason," Wilson said, "because I think it would be even more difficult if everyone knew that their consciousness would be sucked out of their heads by the technical staff of the Defense Forces and put directly into the computer storage space. Resist. Will you please?" "God, of course not," Robbins said. "I almost peed my pants when I was teleported." "That's what I meant," Wilson said. "You're right, anyway. Until this thing—" He pointed to the holographic display, "we couldn't do it if we wanted to." "How the hell did Boutin do it?" Robbins asked. "Cheating," Wilson said. "A year and a half ago, Charlie and everyone could only study technology that originated from humans, and technology that was stolen or borrowed from other races. Most of the races in our airspace are similar to humans." The technical level of the two is roughly the same, because those who are too weak are either driven out of their homes to die or are extinct. However, there is a neighbor who is light years ahead of everyone." "Consu," Robbins said, envisioning what the Consu looked like: huge, crab-like, and unimaginably advanced. "That's right," Wilson said. "When the Rarays raided our Coral Star colony a few years ago, the Consu provided them with a technology that we stole back when we fought back. I was in charge of reverse engineering the Consu The technology group, to be honest, we haven’t understood most of the content until now, and finally just understood a few bits and pieces of knowledge, one of which was handed over to Charlie for research to improve the process of consciousness transmission. That’s how I dealt with him De: I taught him how to use this thing. As you can see, he learned quickly. Of course, the tools are advanced and easy to do things, which is how humans have developed from making fire with flint to using a blowtorch." "You don't know anything about this stuff?" Robbins asked. "Yes," Wilson replied, "but I've seen similar ones, because Charlie is using Consu technology to optimize the existing consciousness transmission process. We have done something that we couldn't do before, and the establishment of a cache mechanism can greatly reduce the transmission time. But Charlie didn't tell anyone. If you hadn't told me to go through his personal work, I wouldn't have found out. We're lucky, or this facility would have been emptied and given to the Astronomy Institute of the Defense Forces. They want See what Consu technology can simulate the interior of a star." Robbins pointed to the holographic display and said, "I think this thing is more important." Wilson shrugged: "Generally speaking, it's actually useless." "Are you kidding me?" Robbins said. "Consciousness from now on." "Of course, this might be of some use, but you can't do much with it," Wilson said. "Do you know the details of teleportation?" "Know a thing or two," Robbins said. "I'm not an expert. I served as the general's aide-de-camp because of my organizational skills, not my scientific background." "Well, listen to me," Wilson said, "you said it yourself that without the brain, the consciousness model usually collapses. This is because consciousness is completely dependent on the physical structure of the brain-not just any brain, it must be the brain that produces consciousness. The brain. Consciousness models are like fingerprints, derived from a specific person, and ultimately derived from a specific combination of genes.” Wilson pointed to Robbins and said, "Colonel, please take a look at your body. This body has been heavily modified at the genetic level - your skin is green, you have modified muscles, the oxygen-carrying capacity of artificial blood." Many times higher than real blood. You are a hybrid of your own genes and artificial genes that enhance your abilities. So, genetically speaking, you are not yourself anymore - except for the brain. Your brain is 100% human The brain is completely derived from your own genes. Otherwise, your consciousness cannot be transmitted." "Why?" Robbins asked. Wilson grinned: "I want to know too. I'm just paraphrasing what Charlie and his crew said, and I'm only here to help. But I know it means—" Wilson pointed to the holographic display, "It's useless to you, because it needs a brain, and it's Charlie's brain, otherwise it would be impossible to make it talk. Besides, Charlie's brain disappeared without a trace with himself." "If this thing is of no use to us," said Robbins, "what did you call me down for?" "I'm just saying it's not very useful in general," Wilson replied, "but in a very specific way it might be quite useful." "Lieutenant Wilson," said Robbins, "please don't be fooled." "Consciousness is not only a sense of proprioception, but also knowledge, emotion, and mental state." Wilson pointed to the holographic display and said, "This thing has the same perception ability as Charlie when this copy was made. Let me say, If you want to figure out what Charlie is planning and why, start here." "Didn't you say you couldn't access this consciousness without Boutin's brain?" Robbins said. "We don't have it." "But we have his genes," Wilson said. "Charlie made a clone for his purposes. For your purposes, Colonel, I suggest you make one too." "Clone Charles Boutin," sniffed General Mattson, "isn't one bad enough?" Mattson, Robbins, and Schillard sit in the general's mess hall on the Phoenix space station.Mattson and Schillard were eating, and there was nothing in front of Robbins.In principle, the general's canteen is open to all officers, but unless invited by the general, officers below the general level never enter here, and at most they drink a glass of water when they come in.God knows how this ridiculous rule got started, Robbins thought.He is very hungry. The general canteen is located at the end of the rotation axis of the Phoenix star space station. A whole piece of transparent crystal glass forms the walls and ceiling, and the scenery is truly spectacular.Planet Phoenix lazily moves along its orbit, occupying almost the entire sky. This magnificent blue and white gem is quite similar to the earth, and it can always stab the homesickness center in Robbins' brain.It was easy to leave Earth, because you were seventy-five years old, and if you didn't leave, you would die of old age in a few years, but once you left, you could never go back.The longer he lived in the hostile universe of human colonies, the more Robbins missed the waning but carefree days of his fifties, sixties, and early seventies.Ignorance makes people happy—at least it makes them feel peaceful. Too late, Robbins thought, returning his gaze to Mattson and Schillard. "Lieutenant Wilson believes that this is our best chance to find out what is going on in Butin's head. Taking a step back, it is much better than the current black eyes." "One thing I need to figure out first is, how does Lieutenant Wilson know that the brain waves stored in the computer are Butin's brainwaves?" Mattson said, "It's also possible that Butin copied someone else's consciousness. Damn, it's probably not his cat." "Brainwave patterns are characteristic of human consciousness," Robbins said. "That's for certain, because we transmit hundreds or thousands of consciousnesses every day. Not cats, anyway." "I'm kidding, Robbins," Mattson said, "but it's still possible it wasn't Butin." "It could be someone else, but it's very unlikely," Robbins said. "No one else in Butin's lab knew he was working on this thing. You can't just copy someone's consciousness. Consciousness is not something you can do." Something that was stolen without anyone noticing." "Do you know how to send it out?" General Schillard asked. "Your Lieutenant Wilson said that it is stored on a machine modified by Consu Technology. Even if we want to use it, does any of us know how to use it?" "No," Robbins said, "not yet. Wilson seems confident he can figure it out, but he's not an expert in teleportation." "I am," said Mattson, "or rather, I have a team of experts who have long known how to teleport. The teleportation process involves not only the consciousness to be teleported, but also two actual brains-of course we can Reduced to one. Needless to say, we also have to consider ethical issues." "Ethical issues?" Robbins couldn't contain the surprise in his tone. "Yes, Colonel, ethical issues," Mattson said annoyed, "believe it or not." "Well, I don't mean to question your ethics, General," Robbins said. Mattson waved his hand: "It doesn't matter, but I'm not talking nonsense. The Colonial Union has a long-standing law that prohibits other personnel outside the Clone Defense Force-whether dead or alive, especially living people. We are only allowed to wait until the end of the soldiers' service. Post-cloning humans and stuffing them back into unmodified bodies. Butin is a civilian and a colonist. We can't legally clone him, not even if we even think about it." "Boutin just made a clone," Robbins said. "Even so, Colonel, we cannot let the morality of traitors guide us." Mattson was annoyed again. "A charter in colonial law can be obtained on the grounds of research," Robbins said. "There is precedent, and you have." "It's not the same as it is now," Mattson said. "We did have a charter, but it was to test weapons systems on uninhabited planets. Tossing clones would short-circuit the brains of conservatives. This kind of thing even the committee No internal vote will pass." "Boutin is the key to unraveling the conspiracy of Le Rey and his allies," Robbins said. "This time we should learn from the United States Marine Corps and ask for forgiveness after the fact rather than asking for consent in advance." "I admire your courage in flying the Jolly Roger, Colonel," Mattson said, "but you're not the one they're taking it out on, or at least not the only one." Schillard, who had been wolfing down his steak, swallowed a mouthful of meat, put down his knife and fork, and said, "Leave it to us." "What do you mean?" Mattson said. "Give the consciousness model to Special Forces, General," Schillard said, "and Boutin's genes. We'll use it to create a Special Forces soldier. Each soldier we make uses more than one set of genes, So technically he won't be a clone. It doesn't matter if the teleportation doesn't work. We've just got one more Special Forces soldier. There's no loss." “But if teleportation works, we have a Special Forces soldier who wants to betray humanity,” Mattson said. “That doesn’t sound like much fun.” "We can take preventive measures." Schillard picked up the knife and fork again. "You're going to use the genes of a living person, and a colonist," Robbins said. "If I understand you correctly, the Special Forces only use the genes of people who volunteered for the Defense Forces but died before their service began. Hence the nickname 'Ghost Brigade'." Schillard looked up, glared at Robbins, and said, "I don't like the name. The genes of the dead volunteers are just one component, and we usually use them as templates, but the Special Forces have an eclectic mix of genetic material used to make soldiers. This is absolutely necessary given the mission we were performing for the Defense Forces. Besides, Butin is legally dead, as evidenced by a body carrying his genes. We don't know he is alive. He is still alive relatives?" "No," said Mattson. "He had a wife and children, but they died before him. No other relatives." "That's all right," Schillard said. "When you die, the genes don't belong to you. We've used genes from deceased colonists before. There's no reason why we couldn't do it again." "I said Schillard, you never seem to mention how you make your men." Mattson said. "We've been tight-lipped, General," Schillard said. "You know that." He cut a steak and stuffed it into his mouth, and Robbins was growling with hunger.Mattson snorted coldly, leaned back in the chair, and looked up at the Phoenix planet rotating at an imperceptible speed.Robbins followed his gaze, feeling homesick again. Mattson looked back at Schillard and said, "Leave aside the good and the bad, but Butin is mine. Schillard, I can't put the blame on you." "Okay then," Schillard nodded to Robbins, " secondment Robbins to me. He serves as a liaison officer, so the Military Research Bureau still hasn't let go. The two sides share information. We also need to second the technician Wilson .He can work with our technicians on integrating Consu technology. If successful, we can get Charles Boutin's memory and motivation to find out the means to deal with this war. If not successful, I will have one more Special Forces soldiers. No extravagance, no waste." Mattson looked at Schillard, his mind spinning rapidly. "I said Schillard, you seem to want to take this plate." "Humanity is heading towards a great war with three allied races," Schillard said. "This is unprecedented. We can defeat any of them, but three at a time will be difficult. The Special Forces were ordered to Stop this war before it starts. If clone buting can help us do that, then we should give it a go. At least give it a try." "Robbins," Mattson said, "what do you think?" "If General Schillard is not mistaken, doing this will bypass the legal and ethical issues," Robbins said, "so it must be worth a try, and the thread will not die." Cooperating with personnel and soldiers, Robbins naturally has his concerns, but now does not seem to be a good time to discuss them. Mattson didn't need to be as careful. He said, "General, your kids don't get along well with ordinary soldiers. That's one of the reasons why the Office of Military Research and Special Forces Research rarely work together." "The Special Forces are still soldiers after all," Schillard said. "They know how to obey orders. They will succeed. There has been a precedent. The Defense Forces had an ordinary soldier who participated in the Special Forces mission in the Battle of Coral Star. Since the If it succeeds the first time, this time it will also allow the technical personnel of both parties to cooperate well, so as not to break their heads or something." Mattson tapped on the table in front of him while thinking, and asked, "How long will it take?" "We want to create a template for this body, not just inheriting the genes of the original owner," Schillard said, "I have to confirm with my technicians first, but it usually takes a month to build a template from scratch, and it takes a long time to cultivate the body." It is at least sixteen weeks. On the other hand, it is difficult to say how long it will take to study the technology of transmitting consciousness. But both sides can be carried out at the same time.” "Is it possible to speed up the process?" Mattson said. "Yes, yes," said Schillard, "but it is possible to grow a corpse, and it is even more terrible. There is no rush to create a body, you know that. The bodies of your soldiers need to follow the same time." Table, you should be very clear about the result of the acceleration." Mattson made a face.Robbins had only been Matson's liaison officer for eighteen months, and the words reminded him of how long Matson had been in that position.Regardless of the working relationship, Robbins could never fully understand his boss. "Okay," Mattson said, "it's up to you. See if you can squeeze out some information. But you have to be careful. Although I have a bad relationship with Butin, I never thought he might defect. He Fooled me, fooled everyone. You put the consciousness of Charles Boutin in the body of a special forces soldier, God knows what he will do." "Agreed," Schillard said. "If the transmission succeeds, we'll dig up the information soon; if it doesn't, I know what to do with him. Make sure nothing goes wrong." "Very good." Mattson once again looked at the Phoenix star rotating in the sky. "Phoenix," he said, looking at the whirling planet, "this animal comes back to life. Very well, very fitting. Phoenix rises from the ashes, you know? Let's hope the resurrected one doesn't destroy everything up there." The three of them looked at the planets in the sky together.