Planetary Governor Venedictov

The Planetary Governor Venedictov is a woman that seems much too young for her station, although she too shows the unusually precise movements of the preternaturally preserved. She looks to be only in her early twenties, but it would be impossible to interact with her for any length of time and mistake this for her true age. She is wearing a deep green ball-gown and mantle, with a faintly glowing double-helix pattern embroidered into the gown's sash. "We'll find ways of dealing with them. There are more than just these five adventurers on the case. People are digging into the archives already."

Venedictov catches Stargazer by the arm and shows him a small dataslab previously concealed within her wrap. She surreptitiously shows him a video of a Chittik that he would describe as massively corpulent being questioned in an interrogation chamber. It's sized to be the one from the cold sleep pod, and it's heavily strapped down. He can't hear the audio, but after several questions, the interrogator's head suddenly explodes in a spray of gore and he falls over. "This is what you brought back. It's not a queen, it's one of the males. It does know English, and our best estimate from brain size is that it's massively intelligent. We can't get it to talk much so far. It's a very, very powerful telepath, though. We're actually not sure about allowing an in-person interrogation anymore. Who knows how much it got out of that man's brain before it decided to kill him? It may already know more about us than we know about it. You and your friends currently have more experience with the Chittik than anyone alive in the State. Do you know how valuable that makes you?"

Stargazer nods. "If the...King? Drone? Umber hulk? ...is hyperintelligent and psychic, that would explain why they were so desperate to reclaim it. They do not strike me as...how can I put this...they are clever enough to build ships, but not clever enough to build them well. I'm pretty sure they rely on slave labour for most maintenance, which is deeply moronic and is probably why their ships are garbage. If you need more information about any part of it, please ask."

"Well, that is what I am asking. There's a man who works at The Black House. Archivist Fenicks. Someone needs to go to him and find out what he has on the Chittik. This is a highly secretive matter. It can't be done openly. Can your group invent a cover story for why you would go there? If so, it would be tremendously helpful."