Pylo returned to the Terran’s habitat with an exhausted Quarti. It was kind of embarrassing really.
She should have known better than to burn someone out like this. But Quarti kept on insisting on increasing the throughput until the poor thing was literally convulsing and choking on dataflow! She should have throttled the terran back before that point but it had not been immediately obvious how metabolically taxing the experience was going to be for quarti until the second utterance.
And by that point they already had said everything they needed to say.
She would make sure next time there was better coolant available and maybe intravenous fluids? If this was going to become Quarti’s prefered dialect. Possibly she should insist that they be in direct contact when they talk? That way she could do more direct sensory stimulation and heat exchange support. And not having to do everything with resonance would probably lower the strain and waste heat of the discussions as well. Not to mention it would so much of a weight off of her cortices to have direct contact!
That said her utterly embarrassing cascade of social faux pas that Pylo would never ever let any of her sisters hear about aside it had been quite a nice little chat!
It was so rare to have anyone even attempt to ramp up to near siren levels of exchange! Granted the terran was completely incapable of taking even a few spores of info pollen levels of data-load. It was a very sweet gesture she asked for as much breadth as she had!
Yes technically in terms of total data the background traffic and protocols maintenance with ▙◀ in a buinoʊr of time was a larger amount of actual communication then the whole conversation with Quarti. But the content and depth of conversation was of a much more intimate character. ▙◀ was more like exchanging with a port authority or engaging an entire market economy. The demi-urges where the real individuals in the whole affair.
Speaking with Quarti was pleasant and soft, it reminded Pylo a little bit of home.
Oh dear, thinking of ▙◀ what had they gotten themselves into with the other two terrans?
“So, when you said augments you didn't mean anything that would need surgical injection, integration, reconstruction of our brains, bodies or organs? So what precisely DID you mean?”
“Ah, well to be precise there will be physical alterations to your brains, although this may vary between the three of you as the degree of your symbiont maturities effects specifics of how much structural foundation it keeps in the-”
Pylo checked the logs ▙◀ kept for context then made a terran quirky smirk of bewildered amusement. Just how had they thought THAT would have the correct translation in? Oh yes it was technically correct and fit the tone and dialect but it gave a wholly different subtext! Well, at least this made the prediction markets exploitable and earned her some more of the internal currency by pointing it out, before deviously interjecting and getting the social credit with the terrans as well.
She tilted her voice into three flavors of amused levity. While giving a diplomatic digest to ▙◀ with a partial accredditing to Altruism for half of her winnings from the market manipulation.
“I believe what ▙◀ meant to say is that they would be happy to offer you three EDUCATION and TRAINING to help compensate for the isolation and effective neglect that a Terran upbringing has forced upon you?”
Aleph and Omega shared an overt expression of dawning realization.
"That said injectable supplemental technology WOULD be on the table to help you advance further. But we will need to get that worked out after we see how much you can do with your own abilities and even then ONLY after a proper medical essay can be done somewhere civilized. I’m not going to risk any of you to the absurdity of Terran medical knowledge"
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
▙◀ and internally Altruism and their allies rallied to the opening given them and calmly gestured in a crude approximation of Terran mannerisms.
“Yes, thank you for clarifying Ship Mistress, it is truly a delight to have you able to fully contribute to discourse with the Terrans. Memetic augmentations and evaluations of ability would naturally come first. Then proper medical and schematic evaluation and digest, then a supplementary treatment and prosthesis proposal and-”
Omega seemed distressed, catching onto something about the exchange that Pylo could not help but find even more amusing.
“Wait, you are talking about education and training, as in giving us classes? Like back at the Academy?!”
Aleph seemed to catch on with that and the face she was making reminded Pylo a lot of how Quarti had lit up the first time Pylo had responded to her, before she had upped the data throughput.
“We are going to get classes on hyper advanced alien technology?! Oooh I can’t wait to see how you do it! Is there like a learning machine that injects the ideas directly in our heads?! Oh wait! Or is it going to be like some crazy accelerated memorizer that gives us a whole life time in seconds?!”
Omega turned to look at the Aleph with growing panic and distress then flashed a glance at Pylo that could not be more plain.
Pylo subtly shifted her head in a negative for Omega’s benefit to calm the poor dear down. Which it did, there was no way Pylo was going to do anything so uncouth to the little larval terran. Not after seeing how badly that sort of direct stimulation effected her last time.
Really these terrans!
▙◀ apparently was not so subtle, or they just wanted to reign in Aleph’s adorable little flights of fancy.
“No Aleph, I’m afraid either of those would probably cook you from the inside out or give you a dreadfully terminal case of time sink. Instead, an optimal technique derived from human retention and learning data will be used.”
Omega muttered under her breath about Aleph being too young for skill loading, and after a glance at Quarti's state adding her being to young for other things as well, but no one else seemed to notice so Pylo pretended she didn't notice too.
Aleph’s enthusiasm however remained completely unquenchable despite the imminent reveal.
“Oh! So you're going to apply your alien hyper science to the Terran data points and create some kind of super engaging death gauntlet training regime that can integrate the advanced ancient knowledge superhumanly fast?!”
Pylo shared a smirk with the exhausted heap of Quarti. Who provided a thumbs up from her place embedded in the filtering foam.
Once again ▙◀ chimed in clear and concise.
“I will certainly endeavor to utilize the materials available to the absolute best possible for your betterment. However I believe we all have duties we must attend too, I will go and perform them as I prepare the...”
Pylo provided a quick contextual guide to the assemblage, utilizing the proper channel of the prediction market over different responses. Altruism gave a subtle cue of thanks as it snatched up and pushed the correct word.
“Curriculum.”
That deflated Aleph a bit although her expression soon shifted from dismay towards ▙◀ to wrinkle nosed confusion at the heap of a person embedded in the filter foam.
“Ugh, what happened to Quarti?”
Pylo laughed happily at the question and saved her friend the exertion of trying to speak through her sore throat and muffling foam.
“Oh we had a very nice chat.”
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