(Unknown Structure, 2200 km East of Starborn, Star’s Reach)
The alien structure was both surreal and mundane at the same time. You can tell a lot about a species by how they shape their buildings. Not just the externals, but the shape and placement of the doors and hallways as well, to say nothing of the placement and intensity of the light fixtures. All of these things told a story about different species.
Ihm buildings and ships, for instance, have doors that are wider at the bottom than they are at the top, to account for their tails being more active, while their door controls are obviously fitted for hands with claws, and they prefer to have ramps instead of stairs where they can get away with it. Gauz, on the other hand, build everything extremely sturdily, due to their high-gravity heritage, and their doors tend to resemble hatches on a submarine more than anything else, while they rarely have stairs, instead using lifts between floors. Meanwhile, the Knelfi prefer everything to have more rounded edges, and so their doors are oval shaped when they can get away with it, or at least the door frames will have rounded corners if an oval door isn’t practical, and in all but the most utilitarian buildings the corners of the walls where they meet the ceilings and floors, or turn corners, have all been rounded off, and even the stairs are more likely to be spirals than normal staircases. The X’thari, though? Their ships are all more ‘organic’ in nature, and so you have tubes rather than hallways, and the doors are usually circular, and formed like a sphincter.
So, while it wasn’t an exact science, we could tell a few things about whatever species built this place right off the bat. First, the halls were rectangular, and made of a white metal that our scanners refused to identify. This meant the species had advanced metallurgic knowledge, and were probably ‘tool users’, like other races. The light fixtures were the really odd part. They seemed to be inset into the walls and ceilings, but we did not see any mechanism, and we wouldn’t have known they were there if they hadn’t started coming on, raising their brightness by increments until it was like being outside in the noonday sun. It actually got a bit brighter for a moment, but the moment we started shielding our eyes, it backed down to something more pleasant for humans. This told us that whoever built this place expected a variety of species to come here, and had systems in place to make the local light as comfortable as possible.
This was all we could tell just from stepping through the massive doorway. The size of the door meant that the species could have been much larger than humans were, but the ‘road’ leading to the ‘spacepad’ suggested that this was an area where cargo might have been moved in and out of the facility, which would need more space than personnel quarters. The fact that they were expecting varied creature types (as evidenced by the automatically scaling brightness) meant that this area was also not going to be built to the ‘normal’ of the species’ build.
We were cautious as we moved through the hallway. After all, the security systems might be on other settings than the cargo door, especially if we tried to access parts of the facilities we weren’t authorized for (which was all of them). The fact that we couldn’t scan the walls, much less anything that might be behind the walls, meant that we were going in blind. I didn’t like going in blind, unless I had at least some assurance that my group would have the upper hand when it came to firepower. And that didn’t apply, here.
We approached another massive door, but this one didn’t just magically open for us. Instead, a blue hologram roughly human size and shape, but completely nondescript and lacking in detail, like a three-dimensional render that hadn’t gotten around to adding in things like a nose, eyes, face, or deciding on gender, appeared in front of us. From all around, there was a sound that started like fingernails on a chalkboard and ended with a low, pleasant hum. Evidently, now we were going through audio calibrations. This was a decent sign, at least. It meant that the facility wanted us to know about it.
Well, let me rephrase. That was potentially good. There was every chance that this could be some elaborate plot or ploy to draw us to our dooms, but I didn’t think so. Not way out here in the middle of nowhere. More likely, this was some kind of ‘getting to know you’ approach to first contact situations, to try and keep things from getting too weird, too fast.
The hologram was now ‘speaking’. Well, I assume it was speaking, since it was making noise and performing simple hand gestures with its nondescript hands. Fortunately, I had a solution in mind. “Raven, do you think you can work with this computer to work out some kind of translation base? Knowing what we’re dealing with would help a lot, and it looks like we’re not moving forward until we get some common ground with this hologram. I’d rather not go shooting things or blowing them up until I’m certain we’ll need it. No sense pissing off the alien computer if we don’t have to.”
Raven considered for a moment, and said, “There are risks to the procedure. This cloned fragment of my core program is currently unable to communicate with the ship, due to the material used in the building’s construction, so if something happens, I will lose all memory of what has happened since we moved into the building. I can use the external communication devices to link to the computer more safely, allowing us to meet on ‘neutral ground’, as it were. But there’s still a danger if this computer views the interface as hostile.”
I considered for a moment, and then nodded. “We don’t have much choice, since there’s no translation for whatever super-ancient language this is. Even my Polyglot ability isn’t letting me understand this language. It might not even be an actual language, but more of a first contact code, like the Nuevo Edoans used when we first met them, and we are just too alien to these people to understand what their frame of reference is. Pass the translation to me as it comes through, and that may help speed things up.”
“Understood, Captain. There is what looks like an access panel here that I should be able to interface with. The physical access point is similar to the ones in the historical archives seen when people first made a physical study of the Gateways. We may be able to communicate on the same frequencies.”
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“Try it, and then use a physical connector if that doesn’t work.”
Stepping up behind me, Jackie, the leader of the Valkyries, said softly over the team comm line, “Master, does that mean this is a Gatebuilder facility? If so, this would be the first time anyone has ever found anything that could be positively linked to them besides the Gateways themselves.”
I shook my head softly. “Too early to determine that, unfortunately. The Gatebuilders are so far beyond our understanding that we’d simply be guessing at this point. There’s an equally good chance that this was simply the standard connector and communication protocol of the spacefaring civilizations at the time, much like how most companies produce communicators with identical connector sites and power cords, so you can easily share cords with friends. Well, except those MacRintosh people from the Apple system. Damn bastards keep everything proprietary so you have to pay extra for everything they make. Felt good to tell them to go to hell when they came to the Dimiya office wanting to try and sell their ‘business grade’ communicator plans.”
Jackie chuckled, and said, “But Master, doesn’t Black Star keep the vast majority of our work proprietary? I certainly haven’t noticed any fleets with quite our level of tech. And our commlinks are designed to be hard to hack.”
I chuckled at that. “Ah, but that is a technological edge we keep to prevent people from undermining our business. We make our stuff better than other people, and that’s going to cost more. We don’t make all the communicator ports a unique shape with a proprietary protocol so that they only work with Black Star communicators using Black Star access cords that can only be charged by Black Star charge cables, and so on. That kind of business model is good for pissing people off, in the long run. As soon as someone comes along with an item that is as good as yours but doesn’t have all your forced exclusivity headaches, then you’re going to see people picking it up unless you’ve gotten yourself a cult following.”
Raven cut in at that point, before I could really get into my diatribe about shitty business practices in the consumer electronics market. “Captain, I believe I have made contact with the computer controlling the hologram. It is still unclear whether this is the same computer that is in charge of the facility as a whole, or a subordinate system. Using the modern first contact protocols as a base, we are starting with binary code, and moving into other languages as we form a translation base. Working on English first. When that is done, further translation packages will be much faster to install.”
I nodded, and said, “Good. What is the estimated run time on the translation software? I know you’re good, but this is a wholly alien computer system. Even if it is apparently designed to learn and adapt to those entering the facility, it should still take quite a bit of time to reach a full translation, right?”
“Yes, Captain. I estimate that, working alone, with the resources on hand, the computer should have a working knowledge of English, enough to facilitate translation of the systems in this facility, at least, in twenty-four hours at the earliest. However, given your Polyglot ability, we may be able to reduce that time significantly if we run the translation through your HUD until you become able to read the language. That way, we can explore the facility while the system works on language skills.”
“I am uncomfortable allowing the mysterious alien computer direct access to my HUD, Raven. Route it through your communicator and mine, with double security checks to ensure that the alien computer is not getting any direct connection. Allow translations, but no direct contact. When the language unlocks, I’ll communicate verbally with the computer, rather than exposing team comms.”
Raven nodded. “I believed that was what you would say, and have it ready to set up. Unknown how long it will take you to pick up the language, but this should reduce our time frame considerably.”
I took a breath, and then looked to the group. “All right, everyone, we’ve got some time to kill while we wait for the computer to learn our language so we can go wandering the halls without accidentally setting off security alerts and getting ourselves killed. Rest as best you can, but full containment protocols are still in place until the tests on this planet’s atmosphere are done, and we know the purpose of this facility. So armor stays on. Valkyrie Two, step out and give a report to Catspaw, so they don’t get worried about us, and pass the word on to fleet.” I paused, and then said, “Raven, you have a copy of the language they’re using?”
“Yes, sir, but the translation work is slow. This facility apparently uses a Base 8 number system, but that is a mathematical calculation which is easily performed. Establishing baselines for nouns, much less verbs or sentence structure, will take time. A Russian speaker can meet an English speaker, point at a tree, and call it a дерево, and the English speaker will understand the general meaning, even if the language is foreign. We’re a few steps behind that point, since we haven’t begun to translate the visual reference files the computer has yet.”
I looked to Valkyrie Two, their cracker extraordinaire, and said, “Think you can rig a physical connection between two commlinks running across that doorway so that we can access the ships, and maybe bounce some of this translation work off the fleet? That boost in processing power should speed up the job greatly.”
Viessa considered that, and said, “Yes, Master, I believe it can be done. If we run it through the Raven itself, with Catspaw Four and Raven’s main self as additional checks to make sure that nothing compromises fleet security, we should be able to increase our processing power for this task exponentially, at the very least.”
“Raven, risk analysis?”
“Unknown. However, even just being able to access my systems on the Raven will reduce the projected time dramatically. We can then decide whether we wish to risk opening the link to the rest of the fleet. The longer the system interfaces with our computers without our understanding each other, the greater the chance of exposure or damage due to accident or miscommunication, but if the entity is malicious or programmed to perform espionage activities, the greater access it gets the higher the likelihood of a deliberate data breach.”
I took a breath, and said, “Do it. Keep as close an eye on it as you can. Limit the link to the Raven itself until we know more about what we’re dealing with. I would really not like to spend a whole day sitting on the doorstep while we wait to find out how to say hello.”
Within minutes, Viessa had the link set up and ready, and we were getting data coming from the outside, through the facility’s shielding. Raven looked over to me, and said, “Processing time has reduced dramatically. Unknown time remaining. Sending translations as they are rendered to your HUD.” I nodded, and sat down in a corner to study what I was reading. Two and a half hours later, I received a notification.
Polyglot Activated
You have now mastered the Qaettel language. You may read, speak, and write this language as if you were a native speaker.
New Achievement!
Ancient Polyglot
You have mastered a language that has been dead so long in Known Space that there are no longer even any records of its existence. You are the only known speaker of this long dead language.
+1000 Fame
Learning times on all unknown languages reduced by 10%.
Learning times on all unknown languages related to a known language reduced by a further 40%
You gain a new skill.
Knowledge (Xenoarchaeology) has increased to 20/100.
+20 INT
I sighed, and stretched as I got to my feet. “All right, let’s see what this hologram has in store for us.”