“Are you sure you’re up to this?” Loona asked Nonah. They were both munching on a breakfast of sweet grain bars. Nonah was being very careful not to get any crumbs on the smart looking dark dress Naskia had made for her. She didn’t want to look a mess when it was so important to Niall.

“I am! I can do this.” Nonah replied with her mouth still full.

Loona smiled at the thought of using a girl who didn’t even have proper table manners as an argument at a formal hearing. “There will be hundreds of people, big people, all looking at you and listening to what you say. It will be scary, Naskia found it scary. I don’t want you to go through that if you’ll be scared.”

Nonah sighed getting mildly annoyed with Loona for fussing over her. It wasn’t often she got annoyed with Loona. “I will be scared but I’ll be ok. It’s for Niall. It’s important. I will get through it.”

“Ok, but if you need to back out you just tell me and…” Loona said before Nonah cut her off.

“I’ll be fine! Keep your knickers on!” Nonah snapped at her borrowing a phrase and some attitude from Niall.

Loona stymied a gasp with a smile, somewhat taken aback by Nonah’s little tantrum. Just two months ago Nonah wouldn’t have said a word out of place and now she was happily being cheeky. Loona thought she would hate not having a nice, obedient, little pet but Niall was right, she preferred having a feisty, funny little friend instead.

“Ok! Ok! I’ll back off. I know you’ll do us all proud.” Loona said returning to her breakfast.

———————————————————————————————————

Loona stood on the lecture stage for the first time. She waited patiently for her first witness to settle in the chair behind the table on the stage.

“Could you please confirm your name and position for me please?” Loona asked the middle aged woman sitting at the table.

“Certainly.” The witness spoke with a haughty tone. “My name is Mrs Relesu Sarmit. I am a Senior Officer for the Imperial Department of Citizenship”

“Thank you Mrs Sarmit. The time you’ve taken to appear here is most appreciated,” Loona replied.

“You are most welcome, this is a very interesting…situation here.” Mrs Sarmit said.

Loona tapped at her pad quickly skimming her notes. “Could you please outline your role in the Department of Citizenship?”

“I lead a small team responsible for monitoring the activities of Humans, both on Earth and on Titan worlds. We log anything noteworthy and provide advice and guidance when it is requested by the Imperial Government.” Mrs Sarmit said sounding quite pleased with herself.

Loona was standing off to the side of the table. She didn’t want to pace or seem any way aggressive, this was not an interrogation. “Humans are currently classified as a class two sentient species. Can you tell us what that means exactly?”

“Certainly.” Mrs Sarmit said repeating her earlier affirmative response with a well-practised bureaucratic tone. “A class two sentient species is self-aware, capable of communication and simple reasoning but nothing more. They are a planet bound species, unaware of other intelligent life and are incapable of higher reasoning, acting logically or cooperatively at civilisation level. Humans are the most well-known class two species due to their similarities with us but there are other examples such as the H’katu ocean dwellers.”

“And when were Humans classified as a class two sentient species?” Loona enquired.

The witness thought for a few seconds. “They were classified many centuries ago, there is no exact date given but it was shortly after their discovery. The Empire has been reorganised many times since then. We inherited the responsibility a little over two centuries ago.”

“And when was the last time this status was reviewed?” Loona continued.

Mrs Sarmit thought for a few more seconds. “As far as I am aware this has never been reviewed…”

“And when is the next scheduled review?”

Mrs Sarmit paused again before answering. “I believe there are no planned reviews.”

“Thank you.” Loona said happy with the responses so far. “I assume given your position you are very familiar with the current level of Human development.”

“Yes, I receive weekly updates on Human status from the observation post on Titan Station.” Mrs Sarmit replied.

“Can you outline for us the current level of Human development? The major points please, I don’t think we have need for the minutiae.” Loona asked.

“The main points of note we have on record are as follows.” Mrs Sarmit said picking up a pad and reading from a list. “In the past 20 years Humans have engaged in two global conflicts costing millions of lives. They have developed and deployed atomic weapons on numerous occasions. They developed and mastered atmospheric flight in 10 years, they have made several successful return trips to their moon and landed probes on other planets in their solar system. We had to disable several spacecraft landing on the planet Mars as they came dangerously close to a small outpost there. They have created a global computer network, have discovered and are starting to use genetic manipulation and have made great strides in wiping out disease and poverty.”

Loona stopped for a second to allow some of whispers from the audience to die down. The vast majority of them would be hearing this information for the first time. “These don’t sound like the achievements of a class two sentient species Mrs Sarmit.”

“No…they are not. The majority would only be achievable by a class one sentient species.” The witness responded.

Loona paused again to allow the response to sink in with the committee and the audience. “Mrs Sarmit, if you were asked to reassess the classification of Humans, specifically the ones on Earth not the pets, what would you classify them as?”

“Miss Armac, I’m afraid I can’t answer that question for you. That decision is not mine to make.” The witness responded unwilling over step the bounds of her position.

“Well let’s say, hypothetically speaking, the Imperial Government asked for ‘guidance and advice’ on the classification of Humans, how would you respond?” Loona asked hoping her phrasing may help draw out the answer she wanted.

Mrs Sarmit thought for a few seconds unsure how or if she should respond before she spoke. “Hypothetically speaking, I would recommend closer observation. Humans have developed rapidly in the last 20 or so years and their progress continues to accelerate. If they keep up the current pace I would envisage no more than 10 to 20 years before they would be reclassified as a class one sentient species.”

“Thank you Mrs Sarmit…one last question.” Loona said.

“Yes?”

“Can you please give me an example of a class one sentient species?” Loona asked.

Mrs Sarmit looked confused at Loona’s question. She thought the answer was glaringly obvious. “Why Titans would be the most obvious answer Miss Armac….”

Loona smiled slightly as there were more whispers from the audience. “Thank you again for your time Mrs Sarmit, you can step down now.”

————————————————————————————————————–

Nonah felt very nervous as Loona set her on the table. There we over 100 massive people staring at her as she stood on the lonely table. She usually liked to be the centre of attention but there were too many people here. Some at the back were squinting trying to make her out, some girls were making cutesy faces at her while others didn’t know what to make of her. There was a beeping noise as Loona tapped the screen on her pad and a massive image of Nonah appeared on the screen at the back of the lecture hall, she was wearing a dark dress with a loose top and the skirt was tight fitting and hugged her legs. Nonah wished she had a table to hide behind like the witness who had gone before her.

“Can you please confirm your name for the audience please?” Loona asked Nonah.

“Nonah.” She replied quickly.

“And how long ago did we meet and what were the circumstances?” Loona asked deliberately using more complex words than Lyroo had used with Scroof.

“We met about three months ago. You bought me as a pet.” Nonah responded.

“And did you like being my pet?” Loona asked.

Nonah thought for a second, she wanted to phrase her answer just right. “I did….and I didn’t. You’re very nice and we always had fun and you never hurt me. But I got bored a lot sitting in a tank with nothing to do except play on the same bars over and over. And the food you gave me was bland.”

“How would you describe our relationship now?” Loona asked.

“We’re friends now. I have clothes, I choose what I want to do, I eat with you and we talk about things. You listen to things I have to say or if I notice something.” Nonah said. She was feeling less nervous and her tone was returning to its usually bubbly self.

“And are you happier as a friend or a pet?” Loona continued

Nonah didn’t need to think about the response. “I’m much happier as a friend. You’re happier this way too, you spend more time with me, you smile and laugh more and you don’t have to worry about your editor spell checking your work for you anymore.”

Loona went a bit red and fought to control her facial expression, while Nonah had answered the question well she had gone into a bit too much detail for Loona’s taste. “Ehhh…thank you Nonah…” Loona collected her thoughts and remembered her point. “I know you like to tell stories, can you tell the people here the story of how you went from pet to friend?”

“Sure!” Nonah said cheerily. “I think it was about a month ago, you took me to meet Niall. I thought he was a Titan at first, he was bigger than you were but then I found out it was a projection he made in the holosuite. He made me big too!” Nonah said before she was interrupted.

“Wait…are you telling me that this Human programmed a holosuite to allow Humans to be seen as Titan?” One of the committee members said.

“Yes he did. Please, may the witness continue?” Loona asked.

There were some mutterings from the audience.

“Carry on Nonah…” Professor Kurathen said after the noise had died down.

“Once Niall showed me he was Human he said he would teach me to read and write and some other things. Loona agreed as she was interested to see if I could. When Loona was in class she left me with Niall and he taught me to read and to write, it took a few weeks and I’m still learning, teaching myself things now. I love reading and writing, when Loona is asleep or at a class I’m usually reading something from the net or I’m writing a story of my own. I started to read Loona’s articles too and found some spelling and grammatical mistakes and corrected them, now she gets me to check all her work!” Nonah said smiling.

“Nonah, would you mind spell checking something for me please?” Loona asked tapping the screen of her pad.

An image joined Nonah on the screen. It was a few pages from a piece of famous Titan literature.

“Miss Prenn, would you mind joining me for a moment?” Loona said looking over at Lyroo.

Lyroo stood up nervously and walked up to the stage unsure why she was needed.

“On the screen is an excerpt from Ritolo’s ‘The Wanderer’, I have edited it to include some spelling mistakes and grammatical errors, could you please study the text for a minute and then tell me how many errors you see?” Loona said.

Lyroo read the text over several times highlighting errors in her mind, she was nervous about both losing an argument over Human intelligence being limited to just a few wild specimens and also the potential embarrassment of looking less intelligent than a pet.

“Stop please, how many errors did you see?” Loona asked Lyroo.

“I saw nine errors.” Lyroo said sounding less than happy.

Loona turned to Nonah.

“I found eleven errors.” Nonah giggled making Lyroo even more frustrated.

“Lyroo, can you please point out the errors you found.” Loona asked.

Lyroo highlighted the errors she had found and Loona confirmed she was correct.

“Nonah, can you point out the errors you found please?” Loona asked.

Nonah pointed out the same nine errors that Lyroo had spotted but also pointed out two more that Lyroo has missed.

“Very good Nonah, but you did miss one.” Loona said pointing to a capital T on the start of a random ‘The’.

Nonah smiled at Loona remembering something Niall had said to her. “To err is human…”

“And to forgive is Emperor-like” Loona said finishing the Human phrase with its Titan equivalent. “Thank you Nonah, Lyroo. We’re finished now.”

Loona set her hand down and carried Nonah back to the table and set her down beside Niall before returning to the stage.

“I used to think of Humans just like Lyroo, I was raised around Humans and spent a lot of time with them growing up. I didn’t think a pet could be capable of anything more than providing some entertainment and affection but Nonah has shown me they are capable of so much more than that. Given the opportunity they can shine very quickly. Nonah is a lot happier now, I’m a lot happier now and I can’t help but think other Humans, such as Scroof, could be a lot happier too.” Loona said addressing the audience rather than the committee. She believed what she was saying more than ever after seeing how well Nonah had handled herself under pressure.

————————————————————————————————————————

“Could you confirm your name and occupation please?” Loona said to the witness seated behind the table.

“My name is Kiri Miroppi, I’m studying for a doctorate in psychology, specialising in research and analysis.” The witness responded.

“I understand you are Miss Bass’ oldest and closest friend.” Loona continued.

Kiri paused for a second and sighed. “Oldest yes, I wouldn’t say closest anymore.”

“Can you elaborate on that statement for me please?” Loona said seizing on the opening Kiri had given her.

“I’ve known Naskia since we were both about four years old. My home life wasn’t great and Naskia always was the sister I never had. That was until she got Niall. He quickly became her new closest friend. They were always talking, locked away in her room, she didn’t really trust me with him. I had plans for him and she knew it. She was right not to trust me.” Kiri said with some resentment clearly audible in her voice.

“What were those plans?” Loona asked.

“I quickly established Niall has an intelligence score of 89, perhaps higher. I thought he presented a lot of potential for a research project and given how he had gotten between me and Naskia I tried to separate them. I wanted to take him to the psychology lab, keep him for myself and use him for my own benefit. But Naskia caught me and I lost her trust, probably forever.” Kiri explained sounding more ashamed as she explained.

“So it’s clear to say you don’t really like Niall.” Loona said.

“Then I didn’t…we’ve developed an understanding now.” Kiri said coolly.

“Could you explain how you came to develop this understanding?” Loona asked.

Kiri took a sip of her water before answering. “As I’m sure a lot of you may know already, Dorok Melaskah was sent to a penal world for assaulting Naskia and I. He had stolen Niall and Nonah in an attempt to extort…sex from me. When I refused and tried to leave, without Niall or Nonah he attacked me. They had a chance to escape while Dorok was attacking me but Niall didn’t. He came back and attacked a TITAN with a laser cutter. He hurt Dorok enough to allow me to run away.”

Kiri paused for a second. She had to stifle tears that were building as she recalled both the attack and the shame she felt. “After all the terrible things I did to him…after I tried to turn him into a lab rat…or worse, he couldn’t just leave me to Dorok and escape. If Naskia hadn’t forced me to come back with her I probably would have just abandoned him to Dorok…and then he saved both me and Naskia again. The police didn’t believe me when I told them but Niall reprogrammed a holoprojector Dorok had, to project a Titan sized hologram of himself. He saved both me and Naskia from Dorok. The police credited ‘an unknown assailant’ but it was really Niall.”

The assembled audience muttered to each other and the committee turned to each other discussing as Kiri sat looking nervous and ashamed.

“Settle down please.” Professor Kurathen announced over the tannoy and waited for the audience to calm down. “There are a lot of grand claims being made here Miss Armac, are you prepared to prove that the Human is able to reprogram a holoprojector?”

“Niall, can you demonstrate?” Loona said approaching him.

Niall thought for a second. “I’ll need a Mark four Derchin type holoprojector, Dorok had already modified his but I think it will take roughly four hours for me to recreate both his code and my code.”

“Did you hear that ok?” Loona asked the committee.

“Yes, we will provide the requested holoprojector. Do you have any more questions for Miss Miroppi? Professor Kurathen said.

Loona looked to Kiri who had regained her composure but decided that there wasn’t much more she could add. “No I don’t.”

“Very well, Miss Miroppi you are dismissed.” Professor Kurathen said.

“I’d just like to say one last thing.” Kiri said. “I don’t like Niall, he’s arrogant, self-righteous and can be incredibly selfish. But he’s a better man than most of the Titan men I know, he should be a Professor and not a lab rat.”

“Noted Miss Miroppi, we are adjourned for three hours.” Professor Kurathen announced getting up.