Sahjit suggests that the DNA of Rayna Armitraj, disassembled and replicated by the probe, may still be preserved within the probe's computer memory.
Boone has learned the rudiments of the Taelon language, remarkably well according to Da'an.
Backstory
Ronald Sandoval
Sandoval tried, unsuccessfully, to learn the Taelon language when he was first implanted.
Jonathan Doors
Doors began his career as an engineer in a nuclear power plant.
Sahjit Jinnah
The scientist met his fiancé Rayna Armitraj while studying at the Sorbonne in Paris.
The Taelons
Ar’al is the Australian Companion.
Da’an is to attend the opening of the Taelon Museum of Art
Language
There is no grammar to the Taelon language; one must feel the words to see and understand what they say.
The written Taelon language is not read in a linear, left-to-right fashion.
Seek (imperative verb): [s]a[q][r]uvi
Study (imperative verb): laha[r]u[z]i
Transmit data (imperative verb with direct object): baha[r]uvi
Some of the text from the story of Mali and La[s]a, the first story each Taelon learns, which is similar to the fable of the Tortoise and the Hare: "Sluvra[s]a mo[r]ha[r] Mali La[s]a om[r]uvala La[s]a [q]ilui Mali vilui [s]ava…La[s]a vilui [s]olova [u]e-[u]e [e]ami"
One of Ar'al's Implants, an Australian Aborigine, attempted to learn Taelon in order to record the Companions’ history on Earth in their native language, but failed.
Technology
CVI: The CVI seems to negate an Implant's desire to learn Taelon. The Synod does not know why.
The Liberation
Liberation Headquarters, and apparently Boone's office as well, are located in the central part of the United States. The structure is equipped with a self-destruct mechanism and a cold fusion reactor that uses deuterium.
The Probe
The 'metal scarecrow' discovered by Boone and Marquette in "Float Like a Butterfly," called a probe by the Liberation and the Taelons, was programmed to seek and study life forms having a minimum electrical impulse level and define their tolerances under a variety of life-threatening conditions. It was also programmed to use aggression only when threatened. It uses a neutrino pulse to store and transmit data and can change state, becoming a cloud of particles to move about more easily. The probe reveals itself capable of replicating a human in the same way it did a butterfly.
U.S. satellites picked up the probe's transmission from Liberation Headquarters, as well as the transmission it made from the Amish town of Paradise, Pennsylvania.
The Taelons seem to know something about the probe; Da'an recognizes the probe's transmission patterns and Quo'on calls the implications of its presence "extreme." The Taelons possess a device that, when placed over the probe's aperture, apparently renders it inert.
The Liberation assumes the probe to be of Taelon origin. However, several factors contradict this assessment:
It is sending its data to a nebula on the other side of the galaxy from the planet Taelon.
Its instructions are written in Taelon script, but in a "different dialect" that feels "off" according to Boone.
