Qalu tried to suppress her outrage and failed. “That would allow you to reverse engineer my work without expending any effort.”

“I also accept standard credit units. But if you’re in the custody of the resistance, I doubt you have access to your accounts,” Trizyt said shrewdly. “Up to you. It’s nothing to me, whatever you decide.”

“We should go.” Helix touched her forelimb and glanced toward the exit.

Despite their prior conversation, he clearly didn’t understand how much she would give for him, including her life’s work. To Trizyt, she said, “You get the scans only if you succeed in unlocking his memories. Otherwise, I substitute information that will be useful enough to compensate you for your time and effort.”

“Useful is a subjective judgment. How do I know that we’ll agree on the relative value?”

“Are you at all interested in how I managed bio-synthetic integration when so many others have failed?”

“You would share that secret?” Trizyt asked, eyestalks shifting with obvious interest.

“I will, no matter the outcome. And that information alone would save you years of research, even without scans of Helix’s neural network.”

“A number of droids here would transition if they could. And a couple of my AI friends too. You have yourself a deal.” Trizyt turned to Helix. “This way, settle down here and let me get you hooked up.”

Qalu stepped forward. “I’d like to check your equipment first to make sure it’s safe and to be sure you’re not covertly mapping under the guise of helping with his mnemonic retrieval.”

Trizyt made a strange noise. “You caught me. Just let me disable this…and this.” Thin appendages flickered here and there, changing settings.

As she didn’t trust this being one whit, she double checked his work and eventually gestured at Helix. “It should be safe.”

I hope.

It didn’t come naturally to her to be suspicious, but it stood to reason that in a place where everyone had secrets, some inhabitants might be dangerous and others untrustworthy. She loathed the idea of letting anyone else poke around in Helix’s head, but she respected his decision. And he could be correct; waiting might be pointless and dangerous.

He settled into the cradle and Trizyt attached sensors to his skull with deft movements. “Hold still. Don’t resist when I upload the diagnostic packets. If you don’t let them in, there’s nothing I can do.”

Qalu moved back and forth in restless steps, wishing she could do more than keep a sharp eye on the holo display. From the numbers running, Trizyt was doing a complete analysis of Helix’s mental capacity and there was a lot of data involved. She made sure he didn’t try any tricks, at least. Helix drifted into a semi-conscious state, not quite asleep but not awake either.

Finally, Trizyt said, “I found it.”

“What?” she whispered.