Von Squidgie had finally found what they were looking for. It had taken multiple shifts, correlations with the Custodian and their own archival efforts and one or two lucky breaks in sifting through random data storage media.

Squidgie was not one to complain about their betters...

But Shipmistress Pylo appeared to have some kind of pathalogical aversion to storing information in any kind of redundancy whatsoever. Squidgie could find through references and archival links in the more recent acquisitions from Redweed that Redweed had literally had data archives of the relevant information stored in local databases.

But Shipmistress Pylo had actively avoided taking any of them aboard.

It was almost maliciously exacting the way in which the trader had avoided anything being coherently stored in any format more than once.

Which if the information Squidgie had been seeking had been relatively recent history would not have been important.

But instead apparently the only formats that the Shipmistress had deemed worth keeping on the subjects of ship care and crew roles were literally older than Redweed’s entire civilization and as such every language and its mother tongue used by inhabitants thereof.

Fortunately actual physical decay of the archives was not a concern. Due to the time compression of cargo stores from an interstellar ship and the robustness of the engineers and cultures involved the actual archives were still pristine.

But they were not in a format that could be understood.

What’s more, even the faintest hint of inquiries into the subject with Shipmistress Pylo seemed to trigger highly aggressive stress and panic responses and sequestering of a graet many archives out of reach of Von Squidgie and serious impositions, sanctions and restrictions on Custodian ▙◀’s ability to aide in searching for them.

After almost a third of all available archives had literally been forbidden and sequestered in private quarters by the siren Von Squidgie had needed to do the task with effectively zero support from any of the entities that should have been able to be immediate aides.

Lest it be rendered completely impossible by the very things they were seeking to assist and support their superiors with.

It made all of it incredibly difficult.

First a none-forbidden archive had to be identified.

Which was finally done and verified with utmost care forty-five shifts ago.

Then the relevant data formats and languages and cultures had to be properly identified. This fortunately COULD be clarified with assistance from the Siren without rousing a panic response.

After that was done a chain of translations and format reprocessors had to be created in secret between the relevant archive and a modern and legible one. Particularly intractable chains of translation and format reading had to be identified, a proper excuse formulated for the need for them made and then a request for the specific translation apparatus presented to either ▙◀ or Pylo as appropriate.

Von Squidgie was mostly certain that this was being done with the Custodian’s consent despite them obviously being aware that it was against the explicit wishes of the Shipmistress.

However plausible deniability and technical adherence to the sanctions imposed was the foundation of all the exchanges.

So it was distinctly possible that ▙◀ was performing some kind of memetic self censure to ensure they were never properly cognizant enough of the actions being done.

Or at least enough such that they had no liability to the rules in place.

Von Squidgie Worth The First Esquire was confident however that the Shipmistress although presently in the throes of whatever deficiency was working against them would appreciate the support and care of the role as soon as Von Squidgie could identify what it actually was.

Which after more than a dozen more shifts of clandestine work finally bore the ripe fruit of success!

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A coherent list of Ship care responsibilities and ways in which such could be divided, aggregated or combined into various synthethises depending on the composition of said crew and their capabilities and calorie budgets.

At the most diminutive and simplified of a task the list could be said to contain thousands of processes that would be required if one was to replace the crew with wholly inflexible mechanical solutions.

With properly general capacities as would be expected of servitor class entities however the number was closer to six hundred and eight tasks.

For crew with more general capacity and calorie per body profile as Squidgie would consider themselves and the terrans? Perhaps fifty crew would be needed to minimally cover all the responsibilities.

When considering beings such as the Shipmistress and Custodian? five to twenty crew beings trained in a collection of expert skills and then preferable an addition of the same crew at the capacity of Squidgie and the Terrans.

Settling into reading the lists of responsibilities for those of their level and above Squidgie grew concerned. They had now lived the majority of their life aboard tunie, Watching and observing the tasks and behaviors of the Shipmistress, the Custodian and the Terrans. As well as their fellow Clerks both mature and motile.

There were significant, terrifying gaps in the expertise being covered.

More so those gaps grew to catastrophically horrific when considered against the fact that Ship Mistress Pylo had apparently been functioning as the sole crew member alone aboard Tunie for thousands of transits.

There had been no one taking on the responsibility of Ship dietician with anywhere near the expertise that was called for.

There was no F’teropod surgeon capable organisms on board. The Siren had apparently been making do with an exorbitantly expensive piece of high urban city magic in their stead.

There was no one at all performing general data network maintenance or hold archival activities. Which given the state of the data troves was not surprising. This data itself should have been accessible in less then a second, not the work of close to four terran months to isolate, track down and make accessible.

There was no one with expertise or proper niche adaptations for broad scale economic prediction and course tracking. Apparently the Siren and the Ship had been making due somehow on their own! How they could possibly have enough insight for that Von Squidgie was at a loss.

There was no ecologists or pathologists of any kind, Although perhaps in that regard Pylo’s status as a Siren of an esteemed and well bred Clan would mitigate some of the more horrific risks.

No crew nutritive balancer, no Butcher, no Security expert, no Morale and Recreation expert, no resonance sensory expert, no farmers, no manufacturers, no warriors, no research specialist, no adaptive chaos scenario experts...

The list of vacancies and voids in vital crew roles was cascading over Squidgie like a horrible torrent of doom and almost certain blind luck.

How had Pylo and the ship survived so long in the reef practically stumbling blind, deaf, mute and crippled like this?

There were catastrophic warnings on hundreds of these vital tasks and what leaving them unattended would do. And Squidgie had definitely not seen any sign anyone ever doing any task.

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Von Squidgie felt stunned, like they had been flung into a wall by many times the acceleration that currently pressed them ‘down’ into the floor.

There were so many needs for the Ship and crew. So many things that desperately needed someone to take up the role for.

Von Squidgie as a mere clerk would never be enough to properly put even a dent in what they had discovered was needed.

A mere simple clerk could never be what the Shipmistress, Custodian and most important of all Miss Aleph needed them to be.

They would need to be something more.

And so would the Terrans.