Fingers was a Pequenino that worked with computers and helped with the Descolada project.[1] He was first introduced in The Last Shadow.
History[]
The Last Shadow[]
When Brussels Delphiki returned from the planet Descoladora, he explained that he had met a man with ape-like features named Ruqyaq, who explained that the residents of the planet, which they called Nest, originally came from Earth after the First Formic War and modified themselves during the non-relatavistic journey into a subspecies called the Yachachiyruna or Engineers, and that the birds had bred intelligence into themselves. Jane collected Thulium Delphiki, Peter Wiggin II, Si Wang-mu, Miro Ribeira, Ela Ribeira and Quara Ribeira, the Raven Dog, along with 3 Pequeninos (including Fingers) and 3 Formic workers to meet with Sprout. With everybody assembled, they watched the video recordings that a Yachachi had made of Sprout's activities on Nest. Afterward, Fingers talked with Dog about helping them proccess the data in the video, and explained that his name was Fingers (digits) because he was good with computers.[1]
When Peter and Wang-mu came back from Nest, they brought 2 dead Keas with them, as it seemed that hundreds had died. Those in the Q-Bay investigated the cause but nothing turned up, it seemed as though the birds just died. Miro said that they should return, but in a Box for any birds to escape into. They filled it with roosts and sent it to Nest. Jane sent the Box full with birds back and forth dozens of times, and one final time for the Yachachi. The group then went to the meadow to sort the birds. Jane told them to divide themselves into their breeding populations, then instructed the Keas to form a group who wanted to be alone and a group that wished to be with the Ravens, as they could not be trusted with humans. One by one the patches of birds disappeared as Jane sent them to the colonies. The Yachachi sat on the edge, and Ruqyaq asked Jane if they could stay on Lusitania, but she said no as the only trees on Lusitania were the sacred Fathertrees. Jane also instructed them to make clothes for themselves, so they asked to stay for a few more days.[1]
Fingers and the others working on the project began testing how the Recorder virus found on Nest became the Descolada. As they began experiments, some could only be performed in computer simulations, as the Descolada was too virulent and too intelligent for experiments with the actual virus to be safe. They were able to confirm that each break would result in Descolada-like behaviors, but only when both were broken did the Recorder become Descolada. It was looking like the Recorder was deliberately turned into a bioweapon. Delft Delphiki proposed that they put the Recorder in a vacuum chamber to test if it could survive in space. After the test, it seemed that in a vacuum, the Recorder would fold itself repeatedly like a fan. Instead of the break points in the Descolada being two among billions of genes, they were two among 88 genes exposed and weakened at the fold points. Thus, the group reasoned that the Descolada was due to radiation damage, and not a bioweapon.[1]
Everyone agreed that they needed to send a paper demonstrating the differences between Recorder and Descolada, how the Descolada on Lusitania was neutralized, and describing the behavior of Recorder in a vacuum. They put the names of the entire research team, including those of the Pequeninos who had worked with them. The Formics who had been part of the project had no names, and they could not reveal the existence of Formics anyway. Ela's name came first, as head of the team. Jane also asked Plikt and Valentine to write monographs that included accounts of the work of the Ribeira family and the Leguminids. Jane was never mentioned; nor was Detouring; and no account mentioned Nest. Jane declared the Descolada project to be at an end, as they had disseminated a course of action for any world that ran across a mutated Recorder virus.[1]