Hue Spaceport, June 12, 3056...
Nathan ordered the lockdown of the enclave at midnight, halting all traffic along Highway One until the dropship bringing the Scientists had landed. A General Curfew was enabled greatly by sounding the air raid sirens, such drills having been a steady feature on Kowloon for, at this point, generations, the populace were well-drilled in seeking the disaster shelters and getting off the streets, even when the city was in Elizabeth's hands.
The fifteen Scientist Caste prisoners, apprehended by the Watch nearly nine months ago, were offloaded under close guard, and brought directly to the Headquarters site while blindfolded.
He lined them up in a room swept for listening devices and secured against remote means.
Then he removed the hoods from each of them in turn.
"Congratulations ladies and gentlemen, you are not here to be executed for attempted treason..." he trooped the line, "Or actual treason, or sedition..." he paused, "Or trading legacies illegally, eh Balzac?"
Formerly 'Scientist General' Etienne stiffened at the sound of his Labname. "no, none of you are going to be executed, nor will you be sterilized and...how did she put it, Morgan?"
"Sterilized and worked to death, OvKhan."
"Right...right. yeah, that is not going to be what happens to you." Nathan stated, "You see, well, you can not see from here...but right down the highway, about two hundred kilometers away, is an institution. one that has, as one of its stated reasons to exist, academic and scientific freedom. No 'Warrior caste' to keep any of you in check. South of here, along Highway Thirty one, is a community inhabited, and run by, self-willed artificial intelligences. Sounds like crazy speculative fiction, quiaff?" He grinned brightly, "They have granted these things citizenship and rights."
Nathan stopped his trooping, turned, and faced the scientists with his hands clasped behind his back, "This place is a gold mine and though not one of you deserves it, I have managed to arrange to bring you all here. Every one of you should be grateful, I have saved you from the bullet or worse. I have seen the files confiscated from your little, secret, stashes...each, and every one of you. Gynoids, really richard? attempting to replicate the 21b social control virus, Ellen? your secret sibkos, Etienne? I have all the files. at my finger tips. and now, because of me, you all get to live."
"What do you want?"
"Well, while you are with me, I want serious work done on reversing or repairing the damage caused by Progressive Inherited Degenerative Neural Sheath Syndrome, also known as Cholmann's syndrome, in payment for that, you can work on whatever your demented little hearts want to. But this may be a short term employment, because the real reason you are here, is as collateral for a trial, which if successful, will give Hector there, all the work he will ever want to have in terms of establishing how a certain device works, and by 'how' I must make myself absolutely clear-the reason we have one tiny enclave here, is my remarkable cleverness. They have a point-to-point drive small enough to fit in a fifty ton shuttle, that can survive repeated operations in atmosphere and gravity wells, a gravity-well immune jumpship drive, that they demonstrated on us, artificial gravity plating powerful enough to generate one full gee and compact enough to fit in the same fifty ton vessel. I intend to make a try for a working example with manuals, for you to tear apart, Hector, old buddy...and we are going to be old buddies. YOur alternative if I lose this, is working in an underfunded university teaching civilian students how to be engineers...in an environment that specifies academic freedom to research whatever you want."
"In simplest terms, you're all being exiled here, whether exiled here to work directly for me, or exiled here to be dumped on the unsuspecting barbarians of the Inner Sphere, it will be exile...not execution. but there is a price, as the merchant said."
"What price?"
"I will want progress reports, information, you will be working for me as your watch contact and handler, once in the hands of the Spheroids, you will dig for their technical secrets, influence their students, and engage in espionage for the interclan watch. you will not have to do this disagreeable thing for me, if we obtain the Raptor, in which case, those of you in genetic or life sciences will make great strides in curing one of the eight incurables...or you will have a disagreeable meeting with a bullet."