"Not with conventional ship artillery. It definitely wasn't something in common circulation. The public story blamed a small crew of Romulans acting alone and said that with their ship destroyed there were no more instances of the weapon. But the Romulans are not that much more advanced than anyone else. Vulcan's destruction was dramatic, but completely depopulating a planet would be well within the purview of large phasers or torpedos."

"I mean," says Miles, "there's hundreds of ways to depopulate a planet. People tend not to."

"The possibility nonetheless weighs somewhat heavy on my mind. It was only nineteen years ago. I would have been on that planet if it had happened a few months later, I lost my father regardless, and recently endured some unpleasantness motivated by his species' scarcity."

"Artillery is not a priority," murmurs Linya.

"...On a happier note: so! Parents! Are a thing for you!"

"Uh... yes? My mother's still alive. She lives in Phoenix, on Earth."

"Haut don't have parents in the conventional sense. I have a designer, who I've met once, and a secondary principal gene contributor, who died before I was born. Is why Ivan is so interested to note that you have a different origin story."

"I still think parents are bound to be important sometimes," says Miles.

"I found Dr. Hall!" says Lalita.

"Hi," says Dr. Hall.

"...Asterion?"

"Does Asterion look like that?" wonders Linya. "Apart from the height and dentition and so on."

"Asterion looks like that. Asterion moves like that," says Miles. "Asterion is like that."

"Who's Asterion?"

"He looks exactly like you except eight feet tall and slightly fanged, and he works for me," says Miles. "Not as a doctor, though. Soldier."

"How'd you manage that?"

"Oh, we rescued each other from the sub-basement of a biolab," he says. "It's kind of a long story."

"Does everybody have alts?"

"Don't jinx it, I'm enjoying my innocent bystander status!"

Miles snickers.

"Lalita said something about thirtieth century medical advances...?" prompts Hall.

"Ah, yes. We don't have any nonhuman sapients, so we've been limping along without that kind of inspiration, but we have some things. I am not a doctor, but I have a master's in neuroscience and thorough non-degree training in human genetics and some background in allied fields of both and should be able to help poke along through relevant sources."

"I'm interested."

"What else did Lalita tell you?" inquires Linya, starting to fiddle with her pen to lay things out for neat tour-guiding.

"Alts."