Dean groaned. "Of course there is."
"We need time," the scientist said. "The captured data from the probe is incomplete. It was taken during a live fight, under rapidly shifting output conditions, while both of you were injured and the monitored bond state was collapsing in real time. It is valuable, but it is not clean." He paused. "To put it less delicately, we recorded brilliance in the middle of a catastrophe."
Dean looked almost touched. "That is the nicest insult I've received today."
"It was not intended as an insult."
"That is what makes it art."
Arion, who had remained unnervingly silent through the exchange, said, "How much time?"
The scientist considered. "To assess whether the probe captured anything structurally valid, it takes a few days. To determine whether it can produce even a weak analog under lab conditions, it will take longer. A week for first-stage modeling, perhaps two for anything I would trust enough to speak about without embarrassing myself."
