DeLayne chuckled. "Not really; that's one of my degrees, is all, and I enjoy discussing it when I get the chance. Most people haven't the faintest idea how fabricators work; they just use them. We don't manufacture small items any more; once a prototype's developed, the pattern is scanned and recorded. When you want one of that item, you code it into your fabricator, and the fabricator constructs it, with any modifications you specify in the coding, from reconstituted raw materials. When you're done with it, you feed it back into the fabricator's raw material storage for re-use."
Odeon whistled. "That's incredible. Things like your uniform?"
"Among others, yes."
"And I thought the plague and Families were causing a major social upheaval. What you're going to do to us … Maybe Colonel Cortin's right to be afraid of you after all, though not for the reason she thinks."
"I can't deny there'll be stress," DeLayne said soberly. "You won't have to join, and you won't have to accept anything from us that you don't want—but just making open contact will cause changes, yes. It's a good thing for your Systems that Colonel Cortin was able to get Ranger Medart, too. Any Ranger would be good, but he's the Empire's best at anything involving cultural differences—which we don't try to destroy, as you probably already know. To quote a twentieth-century writer by the name of O'Sullivan, our aim is to 'preserve the unique viewpoints of different groups, but at the same time require that each group be tolerant of the others'. We see harmonious diversity as a good thing."
"I'd gotten that impression, but not in so many words. The Sandemans and Traiti, from what I've studied, both maintain their own cultures within their Subsector and Sector."
"And so do the cloudcats, on Ondrian. They're another race Ranger Medart managed to bring into the Empire peacefully—damn good thing for us, since that's the only place miracle-weed produces usable rapid-heal."
"I never heard of any of those."
DeLayne chuckled. "Learning from comm intercepts would tend to be fragmentary, especially when the ultrawave beams aren't aimed at you and you don't have the cultural background to understand a lot of what you do hear. That's what we're in the process of remedying. And here's my cabin." He put his hand to a small plate beside the door, which promptly opened onto a small living area. "Have a seat while I go get the tape and player—my fabricator's in the bedroom."
Odeon obeyed, rubbing the back of his neck. He wasn't afraid of the Empire, and as he'd told Joanie months ago when he first started studying them, he already had some respect for them. DeLayne was adding to that, even as he was overwhelming Odeon with casually incomprehensible references. Fabricators, cloudcats, miracle-weed, rapid-heal … and teaching tapes. DeLayne was emerging from the bedroom carrying what looked like a small book and a thin box of matches, though Odeon was sure those had to be the reader and 'tape' he'd mentioned.