Grandmother settled at Agatha’s workstation in the engineering control center. Sarah was still reviewing footage from Ellen’s camera, but there was no sign of Alex and Companion. Grandmother set the amulet from the arena on the desktop. The stone was now the gray of an inactive nanobot solid, but interestingly the chain was still silver.

A fresh camera amulet was around her neck. She ordered up a new set from the automatic manufacturing machines the first day. She used her new camera to scan all sides of the pendent, before downloading the images into the work station.

She used the suite of image recognition tools Agatha developed to read inscriptions and converted the recording into a text. She pulled up the text version of what appeared on vendors, inventory access points and transportation controls. With a little more effort she added the text from Enchanters sketch of a bone totem she remembered her mother owning.

They all shared the same symbol set. Grandmother ran all the sources through the language programs. They pulled out certain patterns that appeared in each example, but without any additional input on the purpose of the scripts the computer could provide no meaning.

Grandmother reviewed the results herself. Sometimes a human hunch could add the context that allowed the computer to find a solution. She compared the patterns that repeated across the samples, by highlighting them. There was something about it that seemed familiar to her, but she couldn’t pin it down.

She rested her hand on her staff, where she’d laid in again the desk. Her hand ran across its rough surface as she spun it.

She was forgetting the staff. Interestingly it still appeared black to her eyes. Squinting she could just make out the tiny symbols engraved on its surface. The color faded to gray as she focused her attention on it. Surprised Grandmother jerked back. Was it black? Or gray?

She picked up the camera and filmed the entire surface of the staff, including the two ends. She quickly pulled the images off the camera and reviewed them. She could find the footage from inside the arena where she picked the staff up, but this was faster.

The staff was the same gray as the amulet in the recording. Grandmother considered what that meant, even as she converted the images into symbol text files.

It was like when she stood outside the boundary and looked back at the party still inside. She could see the projected colors and textures of their integrated equipment, because at tier six, the nanobots in her eyes were still active beyond Control’s reach. The opposite wasn’t true. Once a party member stepped across the boundary their integrated items appeared either white, for flexible objects, or gray for sold ones. The objects themselves transmitted information on how they appeared. When the object passed the boundary, it stopped transmitting. The nanobots in Grandmother’s eyes, active or inactive, didn’t receive any information, so the object was not augmented.

The staff must still be active. It was transmitting that it was black. The active nanobots in Grandmother’s corneas were doing their duty and drawing the augmentation. If Grandmother asked Sarah what color the staff was, Sarah would say gray because she didn’t have active nanobots outside the boundary.

“Sarah, what color do you see this staff as?” Grandmother asked, to confirm her theory.

“Gray,” Sarah said. She frowned at the older woman and gave her a puzzled look.

“Yep, that’s what I thought,” Grandmother responded, turning back to her workstation. Sarah continued to study Grandmother for a moment, a little worried about her.

That left Grandmother with that odd moment when she looked at the staff too hard. For a second the augmentation turned off. It was very similar to when she’d gotten that glimpse of Valin's true form in Stoneshelf. She was staring very hard at him too. A thrill ran down Irene’s spine. Was she teaching her nanobots to turn the augmentation off?

She looked at the staff and thought that she really wanted to see its true form. Nothing happened. A little irritated, she narrowed her eyes and glared at it. The black faded to gray.

She relaxed her eyes and leaned back. The black returned.

That could be useful, Irene thought to herself. There were still physical triggers, narrowing her eyes, leaning in, holding her focus steady, but it was getting rather close to magic.

It wasn’t magic, Grandmother assured herself. She’d built up a history of peering at people intensely when she was waiting for Control to decide if her skill and tier overpowered the caster’s. The nanobots in her body were collating the two results. It was just code, based on data and statistics.

Code, Grandmother thought. She turned back to her computer. The software was finished stripping the symbols off the staff. This was the longest, most complex example she had. The tiny size of the symbols meant a lot more was packed onto the staff than what appeared on the entire wall around an inventory access.

Grandmother added it to her data set and ran the language analysis again. This time she added the context that the given examples were code snippets in a Turing complete programming language.

What came out of the analysis was almost an instruction manual on how to write code in the language. It gave the syntax for loops and conditional jumps, how to name functions and call them. It identified the symbol that redirected output from one subroutine into another one.

The text versions of the source were returned highlighted in different colors, clearly showing the structure. Many of the symbol combinations were marked as calls to named subroutines. The analysis couldn’t tell her what those subroutines did, but Grandmother could make a guess at some of them. The vendor, inventory and transportation scripts were all contained in a conditional triggered by the same subroutine. Those three objects were all activated by touch. The subroutine must be related to detecting touch.

The scripts for the three common physical interfaces were simplified. Most of the work must be hidden in the called subroutines underneath. Grandmother thought the symbols carved on them were more of decoration than actually coding that the machines were running on. Perhaps they were the introductory instructions on use. Grandmother thought about what kind of mind would use code as instructions. Perhaps the same kind of mind that liked to reduce everything to numbers, she thought, as she remembered the list of numbers that represented the log of everyone who touched the gallery crystal.

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The script for the bone totem and the amulet were more complex, but they were nothing compared to the staff. To Grandmother’s eyes, the staff was custom code. Instead of calling a single subroutine at a conditional, it would call many. It looked like the work of a programmer using a fixed library. They strung the subroutines together to get the functionality they needed, while whoever wrote the physical interface code was able to get a subroutine added to the library with the exact functionality they desired.

This was important, Grandmother felt it in her bones. She needed to know this code. Not just in an academic manner either. She needed practical experience.

Grandmother started working on turning the analysis into an actual instruction manual. She set up a quick conversion into the dominant programming language used in the Speedwells systems. She wrote place holders for the subroutines she could guess the meaning of. She copied the current programming lessons from the educational systems, and converted the copies to use the new programming language. She would work through them during the evenings in order to cement the skills into her brain.

The staff was a treasure trove for deciphering the language with its more verbose code. The amulet provided its own little jewel. One surface of it carried the definition of a subroutine. Grandmother remembered how the tiny symbols seemed to change when she turned the amulet in Home Square. They didn’t now. Now they were frozen, with the subroutine on one side. She needed to go through the recordings and pull out all the images of her turning the stone.

“I’m going to go find the boys for dinner, you want to come,” Sarah asked. Grandmother slipped the amulet over her neck and rose to her feet, picking up her staff without any conscious thought.

“Yes,” Grandmother responded. “I didn’t realize it was so late.”

They found Alex and Companion in the education center. Alex was deep into a text on ancient Earth myths. The quick glance that Grandmother caught of Companion’s screen showed an instruction video on woodcarving. It seemed a strange choice. The selkie didn’t like wood as a material. They preferred heavy waterproof materials like stone.

They went together up to the crew cafeteria. This being a quick stop in the middle of the adventuring season, they were eating mostly preserved food. The meals were produced during the maintenance cycle, when the harvest was in, and frozen. The automated systems did a fair job of reheating the meals, and there was a good assortment to choose from, but they were not Todd’s cooking.

“I think Valin is an elf,” Alex announced.

“What?” Grandmother asked.

“I've been researching it,” Alex explained. “Specifically he’s a light elf. There were dark elves too, but they had dark skin.”

“You were reading a book on myths,” Sarah commented. “How is that research?”

“Where do you think selkie came from?” Alex asked.

“Elf is fine,” Grandmother injected. “Even if we get a species name from Valin or Enchanter, we will still have to come up with a word we can say for them. Elf will work.”

“Great,” Alex said. “It really fits him. They had pointed ears and were tricky.” Grandmother was amused that light skin, pointed ears and ‘tricky’ was enough to get Valin’s entire race named elves. Of course the names they gave to the animals weren’t any more accurate.

“I’ve pulled all the footage from both challenge events,” Sarah commented, “and used them to put together a kind of schematic of the automata. It looks like they are a skeleton with a layer of flexible integrated material on top. I can see the gray members underneath whenever anyone gets a sword cut in.”

“I thought the Tinkerer could be the skeleton inside the automata,” Grandmother commented. “I’m disappointed the Tinkerer was just an augmentation. I’d like to study its design.”

“Maybe Control knew you were recording,” Sarah responded, “and didn’t want you to be able to study it at your ease.”

“I hope not,” Grandmother replied. Although she’d really given up hope that they could hide anything from that computer. “Companion, can you help me with my translator project tomorrow?” Grandmother asked the selkie. “I started designing it when you first joined us, but then you didn’t really need it. I think it might be easier to finish the selkie version and then alter it to fit Valin.” Companion readily agreed.

“Are we going out to the villages on this trip?” Companion asked.

“If you want to go, sure,” Grandmother responded. She was thinking about whether she should keep Valin away from the villages, but then she decided no. He could always come back on his own when they weren’t there. If she went out with him she could drop a word of warning in the ears of the village elders at the same time. Grandmother took another bite of her perfectly acceptable meal. “We can buy some fresh bread from my brother,” Grandmother commented.

“You have a brother?” Sarah almost demanded.

“Yes,” Grandmother said in a slow voice that said it was obvious.

“In the villages?” Alex questioned.

“Yes, he’s the baker in Woodheart. Well he might be retired by now,” Grandmother admitted.

“You never mentioned him,” Sarah commented. “Does Todd know?”

“I go and visit him each maintenance cycle,” Grandmother said defensively.

“Todd doesn’t know,” Alex stated. “I bet Ellen doesn’t either.”

“You visit all the elders,” Sarah exclaimed, “how were we to know he was your brother? Do you have any other family in the villages?”

“My sister settled in Bayou, but she passed away years ago. I try to check in on her children when we are down there,” Grandmother commented. “They are paired and have children of their own. They aren’t much interested in an odd aunt. I find them refreshing.”

“You're talking about that wild family that fishes the marsh,” Sarah realized.

“Good fish,” Companion said. Obviously distracted by one of his favorite foods. Selkie families were much more loosely tied. With their long lives, the youngest children might never meet their oldest brothers and sisters. They rarely even knew they had aunts and uncles, especially the youngest nieces and nephews. Children were the providence of the females. They held them close and guarded them, not just from outside dangers but from the danger of males. He wasn’t sure why his human companions were upset.

“I have to tell Todd,” Alex announced.

“Each couple in the last generation of crew raised eight children,” Grandmother explained carefully. This was a history lesson she taught them before. “Four daughters and four sons. I am a member of the landing generation. I am one of the eight children my parents raised. I am pretty sure I told you that before,” Grandmother commented.

“I thought they were all dead,” Sarah said, looking contrite as soon as the words were out of her mouth, as she realized how insensitive that statement was.

“Well most of them probably are. I know three of them died, but I lost track of my sister Mary in the structure, so I really don’t know about her. My second youngest brother and sister went east in the early days. No one heard of them again. That leaves Benjamin and me,” Grandmother explained.

“East? What is to the east?” Alex asked.

“I don’t really know,” Grandmother admitted. “I’ve always meant to pull up the survey data from the advance ship, but I never get to it.”

“Can we do it tonight?” Sarah asked.

“Sure,” Grandmother agreed.

“After, we view the best of the challenges,” Companion suggested. Everyone agreed.