Phoenix, p.10
Phoenix, page 10
part #1 of Queen's Avatar Series
For the second time during the day the entire crew remained speechless. Peter was not sure how they appeared to their new acquaintances, he doubted they come across looking very smart.
Charles simply burst:
“It speaks!”
Peter tried to save the situation, pointing to himself and Christine: “Human Teachers.”
The alien woman, a girl maybe, nodded: “Human.”
The elder made a gesture urging the humans and the green themed alien girl together. They were led to their assigned guest apartments. Liz was smiling like crazy. For sure she was looking forward to befriending the female alien. Peter remembered her past practice of tagging future friends when meeting people for the first time, and she was never wrong. She called this woman instinct in action.
✽✽✽
“Well, that went well,” concluded Christine.
“It speaks! Could you find something more intelligent to say? Luckily they didn’t understand you.”
The worst attack somebody could conceive against Charles was to challenge his professional genius. The close second was to challenge his intelligence. Which didn’t seem to faze Liz at all. Quite the contrary.
Unfortunately for him, Charles could find little grounds to blame Liz or any other crewmates for his blunder, so he had to deflect lamely, by turning against their hosts.
“I was surprised of their audacity. They basically admitted they were spying on us. The only way that girl knew a couple of words was being in contact with the initial alien we met. That one memorised a few English terms and passed them across.”
“Hey Charles, hold your horses. We did the same thing, didn’t we? By recording their words and starting to build a dictionary. Nobody stole any state secrets.”
“They didn’t do it openly.”
“We didn’t do it openly either,” responded Peter. “To set things right, first thing tomorrow, I will explain what we are doing before we begin the next session.”
“While you are there, any chance of doing some biological tests?”
“Christ, Charles! What now, do you want to dissect her?”
“I mean non-invasive biological tests.”
Later that evening the humans brought in their supplies and portable equipment. Nobody stopped them, nobody helped them either. To Peter’s surprise, they received water and some cold tea, but were not invited to have dinner with their hosts nor been given any type of food. This seemed very weird and kind of worrying. The humans knew of course they could assimilate nothing grown locally, but the aliens wouldn’t be aware of this. Peter filed the oddity and made a note to investigate it later.
Early next morning, soon after dawn, their appointed language teacher knocked at their door. Luckily, they were all awake. During the night the military took turns staying on watch and as soon as the sun was up Nolan mobilised everybody for the morning exercise routine. Apparently being away from the ship did not excuse them in front of Derek Nolan. He still considered himself responsible for their physical fitness.
Sergeant Morris opened the door. The diminutive alien greeted him with a bow. She has come alone, but confidently smiled to the slightly confused warrant officer almost twice her size.
In any normal set up Tim Morris looked capable to take care of any kind of danger, but right now he was completely at a loss with the young girl. Or maybe mature woman. The way the natives looked like it was difficult to say.
Once inside, the teacher introduced herself as Alean or maybe Aleen, using exactly the same gestures that Peter and Christine used during their initial encounter. The humans reciprocated, giving their names, one by one. Aleen seemed to recognise Peter and Christine and greeted them with an extra shiny smile. Liz got the same treatment in response to her own enthusiastic introduction.
The girl took the lead and navigated them around a maze of corridors to an inner courtyard continuing into a well-maintained garden. The weather was warm and pleasant. Spending the day in the sun looked like a good idea.
It wasn’t maybe a spontaneous whim as they initially thought. The first thing their guide did was to show Liz, Ewan and Charles into the garden. Christine whispered to the remaining crew:
“I believe they know of the make-up of our team, so they replicated the set-up we had on the meadow. Biologists will continue their tests, while we busy ourselves building a dictionary. That was thoughtful of them.”
That left the military out. Lt Commander Nolan was perfectly happy to climb the parapets, seeming to admire the view. Knowing Nolan, he was probably assessing the weak points and looking for weapon emplacements.
The cross-species language team arranged themselves in a circle. True to his word, Peter took out the recorder, pointed to a boulder saying the word both in English and in Haillar, then played back the recording. The alien nodded, nonplussed. Peter had an explanation prepared, half gestures half words, but apparently no explanation was asked.
“They have either seen electronic recording before, or they have a rather passive mindset when facing anything unknown. Given that the first option is unlikely, they must be geared quite differently compared to humans. It was the same with the alien in the meadow, he did not seem to question at all seeing strange beings flying around in wingless contraptions.”
Whatever psychological profile their guide had, she proved to be quite proficient in grasping language concepts. Soon Peter moved from simply building a dictionary to basic phrase structures and even a rudimentary form of conversation. He was now a lot closer to his own linguistic field of expertise, applying algorithms in analysing word patterns. As conversation evolved, he even activated the digital console and initiated the first recognition sequences. Aleen watched curiously over his shoulder.
Meanwhile Christine opened the map they put together in orbit and engaged in an animated dialog, involving few words and a lot of pantomime.
They took a break at lunch time, the humans having an impromptu picnic in the garden while their contact disappeared inside.
“We made huge progress. Working with somebody who appears to be trained in language structure and grammar is so much easier.”
“What did you find about them?” asked Nolan, ever practical.
“They appear to be indeed a feudal society. This place where we are now is led by a king. Their term is more like Warden, the guy we met yesterday. He seems to rule all settlements along the east coast.”
“How about the populations, or tribes, whatever, living in the forest beyond the relatively civilised East.”
“I could not get any straight answer on that. I mean, the answer I got was that they are the only Haillar, the only people, but that is of course impossible. Species don’t evolve in isolation like this. I can understand niche evolution in an isolated place like Australia. Not the case here, we are on a massive continent with no serious barriers to travel.”
“Do you reckon they may not even consider ‘people’ anybody who isn’t part of their society.”
“They obviously consider us intelligent beings. How could they be racist towards their own people and open minded when dealing with us?”
“Most likely they are unwilling to volunteer any information beyond what we already know,” concluded Charles. “When you’ve shown the map, she provided answers strictly concerning the part of their world we have already figured out.”
Christine and Peter could not find any argument against this. They knew that he was likely right, that the Haillar could not possibly be completely open about everything, no more than the humans were.
CHAPTER 13
I am in the reception hall when the Visitors arrive at the Citadel.
Considering my honoured guest status, Alon would have invited me to join anyway. Doubly so now, as the humans arrived in response to my invitation. I consulted with him before sending the message; the Warden was fully in the loop, no breach of protocol at all.
Aleen is accompanying me wearing a nice green dress matching her eyes. She looks very prim. I guess she wants to be at her best as this encounter would be preserved on a Lore crystal. A first meeting with a new race was always considered a significant event. My friend is wearing the recording crystal on a string under her robe close to her skin.
The guard opens the door and announces our guests’ arrival.
The humans file in, nine strangely familiar beings enter the hall. They look large compared to us, but not overly so, not at all dangerous and brutish. We are surprisingly close in appearance, except for the difference in size. Even proportions are right. They may be the most similar species we ever came across.
I can immediately identify their guards. Master Alesar mentioned them, two large individuals carrying some kind of projectile weapons. The polite thing would have been to leave their weapons in the lander, but I guess they must be wary of us. The head guard is less obvious, a wiry human holding his hand a little too close to his side arm and eyeing us suspiciously.
Alon measures them, then proceeds to deliver a formal greeting:
“Travelers, of behalf of the Haillar Dominion we welcome you! We see this meeting as the first step towards a great friendship. By arriving here as guests, you are now under my protection, as well as Sen’Dorien’s protection.”
The last part is a slightly awkward adaptation. Normally the formula is “as well as my house’s protection,” but since I issued the invitation, I take precedence before Aldeea’s Suzerain House.
A russet haired, young looking human steps forward to deliver their brief greeting statement. I can’t understand the words, I didn’t expect to. His body language is open, non-aggressive. The meaning is probably similar with our own greeting formula. I wonder if they have met other races in the past.
The Warden turns in my direction:
“I formally present my guest, Ellandra Ashar Sen’Dorien, the Lady of Chaos. The lady graciously extended you the invitation to visit our Dominion.”
My introduction is meaningless for the humans. It is relevant for Aleen’s recording, though. It specifies for the Archives that my House is the party which formally takes responsibility in dealing with this new race.
With these formal steps done the official part of the ceremony is over. Alon introduces his niece:
“Lore Journeywoman Aleen Merian has kindly agreed to be your Host at the Citadel and work with your Lore masters to build a common language between our people.”
Aleen takes a step forward, bows and pronounces carefully in human language “Greetings!”, then points to herself and continues with the word “Teacher.” The humans look surprised, one of them utters something unintelligible.
The Warden prompts his niece to take charge and invite the Visitors to their quarters. There was little point to extend the meeting beyond formal introductions, neither we nor they could understand each other’s words.
After the humans leave, I turn toward Dioran Sen’Shahar, who silently witnessed the meeting.
“Chapter Master, what is your first impression of the Visitors?”
Dioran understands this was not a perfunctory question. What I really asked was his assessment regarding humans’ potential involvement with the Scourge.
“Difficult to say. They are obviously independent agents, not Scourge controlled minions. Beyond this, only time will tell.”
My feelings exactly.
✽✽✽
I meet Aleen the next day, early afternoon.
“Journeywoman, how does your project go?”
Aleen makes a face to me. Our relationship is quite unusual for both of us. When we met we were both physically young, and young people, even young Avatars, don’t take each other too seriously. Nowadays Aleen would be mortified to tease any other queen or even a senior adept, but has no problem making fun of me. Neither do I have an issue responding in kind. Far from being offended, this tug of war made me feel complete. By far it’s preferable to the stiff formality I got from her fiancé.
“My Lady, I take good care of your House’s assets. We are making progress and moved to a basic conversation.”
“So soon? Did you receive any help from Lauren Sen’Aesir?”
“Nothing yet. It’s all the result of our meagre efforts. Jokes aside, the humans I’m working with seem quite competent. They record everything on electrical machines. One of them has shown me a device analysing our word patterns, something akin with what the House of Lore is said to employ when breaking into a foreign dialect. The actual mechanism is completely different, though.”
“We need to understand if they are somehow connected with the Scourge and we need to do this sooner rather than later. We expect an enemy attack in a matter of days. Is there anything we can do to speed up the matter? We need to understand if humans came across the Scourge in the past and if they are susceptible to mind control.”
“And what if this was the case?”
“Then we must assume they are somehow involved in the plot, even unwittingly.”
“Would you destroy them?”
“I will do whatever I have to do,” I respond in a sombre voice. I mean it but find no joy in the death of people unable to protect themselves by the enemy’s control.
“Meanwhile, at the end of this day send me a copy of your records. I plan to join you tomorrow.”
✽✽✽
Later that night Lauren Sen’Aesir finally sends us a crystal the House of Lore uses when translating an unknown language. The crystal breaks down the foreign speech into pieces and based on it, builds a translation matrix. In a sense, not dissimilar to the human device Aleen was describing earlier on.
The crystal is mounted in a necklace, to be worn during conversations. It creates a learning loop, continuously improving wearer’s grasp of the alien language. Too bad that it requires eka to work, this limits the choice of people who could use it. The good thing is that the resulting translation matrix could be duplicated and used by anyone, Sen’Haillar or not.
This effectively means that I had to second Aleen, at least for the following few days until a reasonably complete translation can be achieved. Joy! Yet I could not delegate this to any other Sen’Haillar. There were no other Sen’Dorien around and the humans were my house’s responsibility and no others’.
That’s how next morning I’m trailing Aleen to the garden where the humans are already in waiting. I’m wearing the Lore necklace, a garish addition to my working attire. I’m bone tired, after spending half of the night feeding Aleen’s recordings into the crystal. But we both now have a much better understanding of the human speech.
Two humans came to greet us, the russet haired young man who had spoken during the meeting with Alon and a shorter, black haired female. Their Lore masters. Mercifully they sat on the grass so we can talk without looking continuously up at them.
“Greetings Aleen!”, says the male.
“Hi Peter, Christine. This is my dear friend, Ellandra.”
“Hi Ellandra, are you also a language teacher?”
“No, I’m only… curious”
We really have a very limited vocabulary. We need the humans to talk more between themselves for the crystal to work faster. This gives me an idea.
“I’ll leave you language people to work in peace. I can join the other humans.”
The male seems to disagree, then he changes his mind and calls one of his crewmates.
“Liz, can you come for a minute?”
The shorter female joins us, a big smile on her face.
“Liz, meet Ellandra. She isn’t a language student, she’s just curious. Do you want to spend the morning with her?”
The woman nods enthusiastically. I take a closer look at her. She is the shortest of the group, only a couple of hand widths taller than me. She’s also less bulky than the other humans, but still looks heavier than me. My new friend has red hair and green, very expressive eyes. Her face and arms are covered with small reddish dots, but other than this odd skin condition, she seems fine.
“Good to meet you Ellandra!”, she says, reaching out with her hand.
I’m not clear what she wants to give me, as her hand is empty.
“It’s called shaking hands. Humans do it when they meet, it’s a greeting.”
I’m still confused with humans’ need to shake hands while they also verbally greet, but I extend my hand and take her palm in mine. It is slightly bigger, but not uncomfortably so.
“Wow, you hand is so very soft and warm. You must have good moistening creams here. Come, let me introduce you to the others.”
I don’t fully understand everything she says but move over to meet the others in the group. Liz seems to be part of a group of people studying plants. She is affiliated to Life, I guess.
I’m presented soon after to another male, Ewan, even younger than Peter, and to an older, very official looking human, Charles. Both are working with Liz and study Life. Another young man, Tony, waves to us and the human guards acknowledge me with curt nods.
I spend all morning with Liz and her team and I come to know them. I like Liz a lot. She is enthusiastic in everything she does. She also talks much, which is a good thing for my Lore crystal. Liz is what I would call an idealist. For her everything is rosy, no challenge too hard. I can’t imagine such a person working with the Scourge. She stands for everything the Scourge minions are not.
Ewan, the young male, looks more controlled. He is excited by what they were doing, apparently this is the first life-supporting world humans have ever encountered. And we are the first “aliens” they ever met. They don’t appear to know anything about the Scourge, or at least no involvement with any other foreign race is public knowledge. Ewan has a mate at home and mentions her constantly.
Charles, the third human, is older and more cynical than Ewan and Liz. He is the only one asking me lots of blunt questions, ranging from how fast my hair is growing to more personal stuff, such as if I was mated, do I have children, how many children a Haillar woman would normally have and more of the same. I can’t say I like him too much. He is very intrusive and not very thoughtful.
Charles simply burst:
“It speaks!”
Peter tried to save the situation, pointing to himself and Christine: “Human Teachers.”
The alien woman, a girl maybe, nodded: “Human.”
The elder made a gesture urging the humans and the green themed alien girl together. They were led to their assigned guest apartments. Liz was smiling like crazy. For sure she was looking forward to befriending the female alien. Peter remembered her past practice of tagging future friends when meeting people for the first time, and she was never wrong. She called this woman instinct in action.
✽✽✽
“Well, that went well,” concluded Christine.
“It speaks! Could you find something more intelligent to say? Luckily they didn’t understand you.”
The worst attack somebody could conceive against Charles was to challenge his professional genius. The close second was to challenge his intelligence. Which didn’t seem to faze Liz at all. Quite the contrary.
Unfortunately for him, Charles could find little grounds to blame Liz or any other crewmates for his blunder, so he had to deflect lamely, by turning against their hosts.
“I was surprised of their audacity. They basically admitted they were spying on us. The only way that girl knew a couple of words was being in contact with the initial alien we met. That one memorised a few English terms and passed them across.”
“Hey Charles, hold your horses. We did the same thing, didn’t we? By recording their words and starting to build a dictionary. Nobody stole any state secrets.”
“They didn’t do it openly.”
“We didn’t do it openly either,” responded Peter. “To set things right, first thing tomorrow, I will explain what we are doing before we begin the next session.”
“While you are there, any chance of doing some biological tests?”
“Christ, Charles! What now, do you want to dissect her?”
“I mean non-invasive biological tests.”
Later that evening the humans brought in their supplies and portable equipment. Nobody stopped them, nobody helped them either. To Peter’s surprise, they received water and some cold tea, but were not invited to have dinner with their hosts nor been given any type of food. This seemed very weird and kind of worrying. The humans knew of course they could assimilate nothing grown locally, but the aliens wouldn’t be aware of this. Peter filed the oddity and made a note to investigate it later.
Early next morning, soon after dawn, their appointed language teacher knocked at their door. Luckily, they were all awake. During the night the military took turns staying on watch and as soon as the sun was up Nolan mobilised everybody for the morning exercise routine. Apparently being away from the ship did not excuse them in front of Derek Nolan. He still considered himself responsible for their physical fitness.
Sergeant Morris opened the door. The diminutive alien greeted him with a bow. She has come alone, but confidently smiled to the slightly confused warrant officer almost twice her size.
In any normal set up Tim Morris looked capable to take care of any kind of danger, but right now he was completely at a loss with the young girl. Or maybe mature woman. The way the natives looked like it was difficult to say.
Once inside, the teacher introduced herself as Alean or maybe Aleen, using exactly the same gestures that Peter and Christine used during their initial encounter. The humans reciprocated, giving their names, one by one. Aleen seemed to recognise Peter and Christine and greeted them with an extra shiny smile. Liz got the same treatment in response to her own enthusiastic introduction.
The girl took the lead and navigated them around a maze of corridors to an inner courtyard continuing into a well-maintained garden. The weather was warm and pleasant. Spending the day in the sun looked like a good idea.
It wasn’t maybe a spontaneous whim as they initially thought. The first thing their guide did was to show Liz, Ewan and Charles into the garden. Christine whispered to the remaining crew:
“I believe they know of the make-up of our team, so they replicated the set-up we had on the meadow. Biologists will continue their tests, while we busy ourselves building a dictionary. That was thoughtful of them.”
That left the military out. Lt Commander Nolan was perfectly happy to climb the parapets, seeming to admire the view. Knowing Nolan, he was probably assessing the weak points and looking for weapon emplacements.
The cross-species language team arranged themselves in a circle. True to his word, Peter took out the recorder, pointed to a boulder saying the word both in English and in Haillar, then played back the recording. The alien nodded, nonplussed. Peter had an explanation prepared, half gestures half words, but apparently no explanation was asked.
“They have either seen electronic recording before, or they have a rather passive mindset when facing anything unknown. Given that the first option is unlikely, they must be geared quite differently compared to humans. It was the same with the alien in the meadow, he did not seem to question at all seeing strange beings flying around in wingless contraptions.”
Whatever psychological profile their guide had, she proved to be quite proficient in grasping language concepts. Soon Peter moved from simply building a dictionary to basic phrase structures and even a rudimentary form of conversation. He was now a lot closer to his own linguistic field of expertise, applying algorithms in analysing word patterns. As conversation evolved, he even activated the digital console and initiated the first recognition sequences. Aleen watched curiously over his shoulder.
Meanwhile Christine opened the map they put together in orbit and engaged in an animated dialog, involving few words and a lot of pantomime.
They took a break at lunch time, the humans having an impromptu picnic in the garden while their contact disappeared inside.
“We made huge progress. Working with somebody who appears to be trained in language structure and grammar is so much easier.”
“What did you find about them?” asked Nolan, ever practical.
“They appear to be indeed a feudal society. This place where we are now is led by a king. Their term is more like Warden, the guy we met yesterday. He seems to rule all settlements along the east coast.”
“How about the populations, or tribes, whatever, living in the forest beyond the relatively civilised East.”
“I could not get any straight answer on that. I mean, the answer I got was that they are the only Haillar, the only people, but that is of course impossible. Species don’t evolve in isolation like this. I can understand niche evolution in an isolated place like Australia. Not the case here, we are on a massive continent with no serious barriers to travel.”
“Do you reckon they may not even consider ‘people’ anybody who isn’t part of their society.”
“They obviously consider us intelligent beings. How could they be racist towards their own people and open minded when dealing with us?”
“Most likely they are unwilling to volunteer any information beyond what we already know,” concluded Charles. “When you’ve shown the map, she provided answers strictly concerning the part of their world we have already figured out.”
Christine and Peter could not find any argument against this. They knew that he was likely right, that the Haillar could not possibly be completely open about everything, no more than the humans were.
CHAPTER 13
I am in the reception hall when the Visitors arrive at the Citadel.
Considering my honoured guest status, Alon would have invited me to join anyway. Doubly so now, as the humans arrived in response to my invitation. I consulted with him before sending the message; the Warden was fully in the loop, no breach of protocol at all.
Aleen is accompanying me wearing a nice green dress matching her eyes. She looks very prim. I guess she wants to be at her best as this encounter would be preserved on a Lore crystal. A first meeting with a new race was always considered a significant event. My friend is wearing the recording crystal on a string under her robe close to her skin.
The guard opens the door and announces our guests’ arrival.
The humans file in, nine strangely familiar beings enter the hall. They look large compared to us, but not overly so, not at all dangerous and brutish. We are surprisingly close in appearance, except for the difference in size. Even proportions are right. They may be the most similar species we ever came across.
I can immediately identify their guards. Master Alesar mentioned them, two large individuals carrying some kind of projectile weapons. The polite thing would have been to leave their weapons in the lander, but I guess they must be wary of us. The head guard is less obvious, a wiry human holding his hand a little too close to his side arm and eyeing us suspiciously.
Alon measures them, then proceeds to deliver a formal greeting:
“Travelers, of behalf of the Haillar Dominion we welcome you! We see this meeting as the first step towards a great friendship. By arriving here as guests, you are now under my protection, as well as Sen’Dorien’s protection.”
The last part is a slightly awkward adaptation. Normally the formula is “as well as my house’s protection,” but since I issued the invitation, I take precedence before Aldeea’s Suzerain House.
A russet haired, young looking human steps forward to deliver their brief greeting statement. I can’t understand the words, I didn’t expect to. His body language is open, non-aggressive. The meaning is probably similar with our own greeting formula. I wonder if they have met other races in the past.
The Warden turns in my direction:
“I formally present my guest, Ellandra Ashar Sen’Dorien, the Lady of Chaos. The lady graciously extended you the invitation to visit our Dominion.”
My introduction is meaningless for the humans. It is relevant for Aleen’s recording, though. It specifies for the Archives that my House is the party which formally takes responsibility in dealing with this new race.
With these formal steps done the official part of the ceremony is over. Alon introduces his niece:
“Lore Journeywoman Aleen Merian has kindly agreed to be your Host at the Citadel and work with your Lore masters to build a common language between our people.”
Aleen takes a step forward, bows and pronounces carefully in human language “Greetings!”, then points to herself and continues with the word “Teacher.” The humans look surprised, one of them utters something unintelligible.
The Warden prompts his niece to take charge and invite the Visitors to their quarters. There was little point to extend the meeting beyond formal introductions, neither we nor they could understand each other’s words.
After the humans leave, I turn toward Dioran Sen’Shahar, who silently witnessed the meeting.
“Chapter Master, what is your first impression of the Visitors?”
Dioran understands this was not a perfunctory question. What I really asked was his assessment regarding humans’ potential involvement with the Scourge.
“Difficult to say. They are obviously independent agents, not Scourge controlled minions. Beyond this, only time will tell.”
My feelings exactly.
✽✽✽
I meet Aleen the next day, early afternoon.
“Journeywoman, how does your project go?”
Aleen makes a face to me. Our relationship is quite unusual for both of us. When we met we were both physically young, and young people, even young Avatars, don’t take each other too seriously. Nowadays Aleen would be mortified to tease any other queen or even a senior adept, but has no problem making fun of me. Neither do I have an issue responding in kind. Far from being offended, this tug of war made me feel complete. By far it’s preferable to the stiff formality I got from her fiancé.
“My Lady, I take good care of your House’s assets. We are making progress and moved to a basic conversation.”
“So soon? Did you receive any help from Lauren Sen’Aesir?”
“Nothing yet. It’s all the result of our meagre efforts. Jokes aside, the humans I’m working with seem quite competent. They record everything on electrical machines. One of them has shown me a device analysing our word patterns, something akin with what the House of Lore is said to employ when breaking into a foreign dialect. The actual mechanism is completely different, though.”
“We need to understand if they are somehow connected with the Scourge and we need to do this sooner rather than later. We expect an enemy attack in a matter of days. Is there anything we can do to speed up the matter? We need to understand if humans came across the Scourge in the past and if they are susceptible to mind control.”
“And what if this was the case?”
“Then we must assume they are somehow involved in the plot, even unwittingly.”
“Would you destroy them?”
“I will do whatever I have to do,” I respond in a sombre voice. I mean it but find no joy in the death of people unable to protect themselves by the enemy’s control.
“Meanwhile, at the end of this day send me a copy of your records. I plan to join you tomorrow.”
✽✽✽
Later that night Lauren Sen’Aesir finally sends us a crystal the House of Lore uses when translating an unknown language. The crystal breaks down the foreign speech into pieces and based on it, builds a translation matrix. In a sense, not dissimilar to the human device Aleen was describing earlier on.
The crystal is mounted in a necklace, to be worn during conversations. It creates a learning loop, continuously improving wearer’s grasp of the alien language. Too bad that it requires eka to work, this limits the choice of people who could use it. The good thing is that the resulting translation matrix could be duplicated and used by anyone, Sen’Haillar or not.
This effectively means that I had to second Aleen, at least for the following few days until a reasonably complete translation can be achieved. Joy! Yet I could not delegate this to any other Sen’Haillar. There were no other Sen’Dorien around and the humans were my house’s responsibility and no others’.
That’s how next morning I’m trailing Aleen to the garden where the humans are already in waiting. I’m wearing the Lore necklace, a garish addition to my working attire. I’m bone tired, after spending half of the night feeding Aleen’s recordings into the crystal. But we both now have a much better understanding of the human speech.
Two humans came to greet us, the russet haired young man who had spoken during the meeting with Alon and a shorter, black haired female. Their Lore masters. Mercifully they sat on the grass so we can talk without looking continuously up at them.
“Greetings Aleen!”, says the male.
“Hi Peter, Christine. This is my dear friend, Ellandra.”
“Hi Ellandra, are you also a language teacher?”
“No, I’m only… curious”
We really have a very limited vocabulary. We need the humans to talk more between themselves for the crystal to work faster. This gives me an idea.
“I’ll leave you language people to work in peace. I can join the other humans.”
The male seems to disagree, then he changes his mind and calls one of his crewmates.
“Liz, can you come for a minute?”
The shorter female joins us, a big smile on her face.
“Liz, meet Ellandra. She isn’t a language student, she’s just curious. Do you want to spend the morning with her?”
The woman nods enthusiastically. I take a closer look at her. She is the shortest of the group, only a couple of hand widths taller than me. She’s also less bulky than the other humans, but still looks heavier than me. My new friend has red hair and green, very expressive eyes. Her face and arms are covered with small reddish dots, but other than this odd skin condition, she seems fine.
“Good to meet you Ellandra!”, she says, reaching out with her hand.
I’m not clear what she wants to give me, as her hand is empty.
“It’s called shaking hands. Humans do it when they meet, it’s a greeting.”
I’m still confused with humans’ need to shake hands while they also verbally greet, but I extend my hand and take her palm in mine. It is slightly bigger, but not uncomfortably so.
“Wow, you hand is so very soft and warm. You must have good moistening creams here. Come, let me introduce you to the others.”
I don’t fully understand everything she says but move over to meet the others in the group. Liz seems to be part of a group of people studying plants. She is affiliated to Life, I guess.
I’m presented soon after to another male, Ewan, even younger than Peter, and to an older, very official looking human, Charles. Both are working with Liz and study Life. Another young man, Tony, waves to us and the human guards acknowledge me with curt nods.
I spend all morning with Liz and her team and I come to know them. I like Liz a lot. She is enthusiastic in everything she does. She also talks much, which is a good thing for my Lore crystal. Liz is what I would call an idealist. For her everything is rosy, no challenge too hard. I can’t imagine such a person working with the Scourge. She stands for everything the Scourge minions are not.
Ewan, the young male, looks more controlled. He is excited by what they were doing, apparently this is the first life-supporting world humans have ever encountered. And we are the first “aliens” they ever met. They don’t appear to know anything about the Scourge, or at least no involvement with any other foreign race is public knowledge. Ewan has a mate at home and mentions her constantly.
Charles, the third human, is older and more cynical than Ewan and Liz. He is the only one asking me lots of blunt questions, ranging from how fast my hair is growing to more personal stuff, such as if I was mated, do I have children, how many children a Haillar woman would normally have and more of the same. I can’t say I like him too much. He is very intrusive and not very thoughtful.
