Gorou, who returned to reality, showed tremendous enthusiasm and motivation for the public solicitation to decide the friendly Space Eel’s individual name.
“I’ll do it, Captain! I’ll somehow get that individual’s name to be Hoshi-bami(planet eater)!”
“Good luck, Sensei. By the way.”
“What is it, Captain?”
“That name is unpopular with the Space Eel itself.”
At Kaito’s statement, Gorou’s movement stopped.
The way he turned toward Kaito like a rusted machine was somewhat frightening.
“…What did you say?”
“Well, you see. [Would you be happy if your eating habits became your name?] he said.”
In other words, would you be happy being called Vegetable-eater or Meat-eater?
Even Kaito found this very understandable, so he thought he should tell Gorou about it.
“Sensei, how would you feel about being called [Supplement Eater]?”
“Ab—”
“?”
“I’ll completely reconsider!”
Kaito watched Gorou turn pale and rush back to his room with warm eyes.
Hopefully, the name he came up with would be adopted.
The various problems related to Space Eels apparently became a new industry for the Federation.
Starting with public solicitation for the Space Eel’s name, to developing tools for communicating with Space Eels, to developing bases that could accommodate the Space Eel’s massive body.
Apparently, the Federation already had tools for conversing with species that couldn’t communicate through language. It would be easy if they could be attached to the Space Eel, but given that massive body, they concluded it would be faster to modify tools already on Federation ships rather than newly develop Space Eel-specific ones.
For some reason, Kaito, who was watching developments from Radia, kept receiving [proposals for the Space Eel’s individual identification name] from Earthlings. Apparently, they wanted him to recommend them.
“Constant-One and Great One, Slitherio and Guretsushirikoni. Matrooto and Big Katsu, Tokujo!? Why do a certain percentage keep coming up with food names? And OTSH? …A legendary ancient sports player? What commonality makes them want to give such names?”
Either way, he had no intention of recommending any. The person he probably should support had been holed up in his room groaning ever since.
Closing the terminal, Kaito left his room. It was his daily mood check.
“How are you feeling?”
——Ah, Kaito. The absorption of my own kind is progressing within my body, and I feel very comfortable.
“That’s good to hear.”
The Space Eel was resting its body near Radia.
When Kaito sent telepathy from Radia’s observation deck, he got back a very good-natured response.
If there was no stress, that was the best thing. Kaito turned to negotiator Terapolapanecio, who was similarly looking up at the Space Eel.
“Progress doesn’t seem promising?”
[Yeah. Apparently identifying individuals is difficult for them too. They can identify us and Kaito, Third-rank Citizen, Enek-Ragif, but they say they can’t tell who’s who no matter which other staff member goes.]
“We can’t leave things as they are. If forces other than the Federation appear, it’ll be troublesome if we can’t tell them apart.”
[Mm. So this is what the essential nature of a species that aims for the singular individual is like.]
The biggest problem standing in the way here was mutual identification methods.
It seemed they could distinguish individuals they could communicate with telepathically, but everything else looked the same to them. Their eyeballs were apparently vital spots too, and keeping them out constantly caused considerable stress. The reason they usually stored them inside their bodies was because of this. They could vaguely sense color, temperature, light, and such even in that state, but distinguishing individuals was difficult.
The Federation also thought it wasn’t good to ask them to expose their vital spots every time just for identification, so they were searching for other methods somehow.
“Still, if they can’t wear anything, we need to think of some device.”
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[The thinking of ‘everything except oneself is an enemy’ makes that ecology rational, but… hmm.]
There was also a problem on the Space Eel’s side. This related to why they had decided not to develop dedicated communication tools for it, but apparently Space Eels had an ecology where they digested and absorbed foreign substances attached to their body surface. It seemed this nature was what had caused them to absorb Queenbee’s worker bees, and they couldn’t have anything attached that would allow identification of it specifically.
At this rate, either Kaito or Terapolapanecio would have to constantly accompany the Space Eel. They wanted to avoid that.
“It would be good if there were some method.”
[Apparently they don’t absorb when in complete dormancy. They burrow into a nearby planet and use it like a nest to rest.]
“Truly a burrow… though the scale is tremendous.”
A creature that made entire planets into burrows. Still, they didn’t digest when dormant.
If that could be handled skillfully, possibilities might emerge, but he didn’t really get how to do it.
Kaito called out to his partner standing right behind him, hoping for some hint.
“Do you have any ideas, Emotion?”
“The Space Eel’s ecology is outside my expertise, so nothing there. However, I do have some ideas about methods for them to identify us.”
[Hou.]
Terapolapanecio also seemed interested.
When prompted to continue, Emotion raised the index finger of her right hand for some reason.
“The difficulty in individual identification is partly due to the vastly different scales of our respective biological forms.”
[Hmm, we share that perspective as well.]
“Then, how about preparing a separate body like mine and transplanting consciousness into it?”
“Hmm… wait, what?”
Kaito heard something that couldn’t be ignored. Consciousness transplantation.
He tilted his head and looked at Emotion. Emotion also tilted her head with furrowed brows, not understanding what was unclear.
“No, Emotion-san. You casually mention consciousness transplantation, but…”
“Isn’t it possible? I’m essentially the result of transplanting consciousness from my original body to a new one.”
“No, that would be like me switching consciousness with Ritmiele-san or Gorou-sensei, wouldn’t it? I think that would be difficult.”
It seemed Emotion had made this statement with some basis for success.
However, Kaito couldn’t believe such a thing was possible.
Glancing at Terapolapanecio, it was floating silently in the air without uttering a word. No good—he couldn’t read the thoughts of a space jellyfish.
“Do you have any basis for believing this is possible?”
“It might be difficult for organic lifeforms. However, the space eels instinctively recognize machine intelligences like myself as enemies.”
“That seems to be the case.”
“The enemy to a space eel would be their own kind, right? This means they’re identifying metal life and machine intelligence as broadly the same species.”
“So you’re saying they might be capable of things that machine intelligence can do? That seems like a bit of a stretch to me.”
Nevertheless, Kaito didn’t know all of the Federation’s advanced technology. Rather, Emotion, who was continuing information gathering while rebuilding bodies, would probably know more.
Since he couldn’t make the judgment himself, Kaito decided to toss the topic to Terapolapanecio.
“What do you think? As an idea, it seems rather far-fetched.”
[Indeed, if it fails, the consequences would be irreversible. However, the idea of preparing a small spare body to help them understand the Federation, to see the Federation from the same perspective, is quite rational and interesting.]
Terapolapanecio, concluding that there would be research value, began floating and swimming through the air. Kaito had recently learned that this was apparently a habit when sharing thoughts with distant companions.
After a while, it descended to their eye level.
[There is indeed research value, they say. If we could put the main body into hibernation and house consciousness in a spare body, it might be possible to solve these problems, according to what they’re saying.]
It was indeed important to see things firsthand in the field, the research facility individuals were saying—at this praise from the space jellyfish, Emotion also seemed pleased, though it didn’t show in their expression.
Kaito looked up at the space eel’s massive body. Would there ever come a day when he could distinguish him from other space eels?
He thought he should be able to do so out of politeness, but he wasn’t very confident.
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