“So Pylo. I was kind of curious, when you were calling us across the ship why did you speak in Ship song like that? I mean it was really cool to hear you in another language I can kind of follow but couldn't you have worked with something else? We have our own totems and stuff”

Pylo considered Aleph with one of those twitchy little terranisms that made her tilt her head.

No wait she didn't need to be upset when using them with Terrans! That was the right time for them!

The whole thing with the ████████ and Tunie’s eye having to be disconnected and scrubbed for resonance infection in a manner that did not instigate another population explosion had put her all out of sorts!

“I didn't have a resonance network of the appropriate frequency for your equipment.”

Aleph made a face and sang in that weird garbled gibberish encryption all the terrans had. She still could never get a grip on it herself. At the vaguest sense of it she was pretty sure that Aleph had pinged the surrounding environment and equipment.

A quick query with the squawker box confirmed it.

“But there is plenty of network nodes for the ship right here.”

Pylo huffed in the thick soup of oxygen while they waited for ▙◀ to show up. She was not sure why the pile of hydrocarbon casing had asked her to attend one of these lessons but they had swapped quite a few favors to get the siren to empty up some of her schedule for it.

“None of these have a frequency range that can reach far enough, they scramble if I’m any further from here then this hold and a few corridors away. I was on the other side of Tunie from you and well out at the inner side of her dermal layers when I called.”

Aleph tilted her head, which pylo was pretty sure was where she kept getting it.

“So, why not extend the network? Uh with relays and stuff? Routers? Something like that”

Pylo sighed and shook her head.

“Tunie’s motiles clean up anything I leave in the hallways as obstructions”

Aleph blinked a bit.

“Really? How big are the relays that they count as an obstruction?”

“Not much bigger than this” Pylo held her two distal-most phalanges a little bit wider than Aleph’s palm.

“Huh? That’s tiny, there is way bigger things than that in the cargo holds, didn't you try putting them in with the cargo?”

The tone of voice and the meaning behind it helped a lot, but even knowing for a fact that Aleph was just genuinely curious and confused Pylo still felt a bit like she was being accosted.

“Tunie’s motiles clean up detritus and scruff in the holds too. Otherwise something could happen to the cargo in transit.”

Aleph was quiet for a bit, watching Omega and Quarti discussing something animatedly.

“How come Tunie doesn't carry the cargo out of the holds as ‘scruff’ or garbage?”

Pylo tilted her head to the side in mirror of the terran’s own action earlier.

“All cargo and passengers aboard tunie get a care and handling tag to prevent them from being moved from where they should be.”

Aleph’s brow furrowed and Pylo could see she was deeply confused and befuddled but was comparably baffled as to why.

“Can you not put a tag like that on one of the relays?”

The non-sequitur was a bit weird but Pylo rolled with it.

“No I could totally do that. But why did you bring it up?”

The confusion spiked even harsher for Aleph and she opened and closed her mouth a few times, then looked around and laughed nervously.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

“Uh because?”

Pylo waited a moment, then frowned when she realized there was supposed to be some kind of obvious prompt from Aleph and she was confusing the terran by the moment as she did not find the appropriate words to insert.

“Because what?”

Aleph frowned and she got a little bit worried. Mouthing a non-verbal I’m sorry to Pylo before shouting across the room.

“Quarti! Could you come over here a sec? I think maybe me and pylo need a different perspective over here”

That stung a bit, but the apology was said before hand so Aleph at least understood that this was hurtful but was also worried. Pylo was not sure why though.

“Yes young beautiful Aleph? How can I help you and our wonderful Ship Mistress Pylo?”

“Uh... So how to explain, I think maybe my brain is doing something loopy or something because Pylo is not seeming to get a thing I’m saying at all and it’s kinda weird”

Pylo tilted her head the other way. Okay yes this conversation was really quite weird and it was nice of Aleph to try and take the blame for it but as far as she could tell none of the meanings in Aleph’s head were wrong.

She just, was leaving things out? It was hard to say there was a humming preverbal buzz that Pylo was ignoring out of courtesy that might make some kind of connections but since it was not flagged as overt communication she had been working to avoid reading it. Taking cues from the sub-vocal buzz seemed to put the younger terrans on edge, especially Omega.

“Okay, speak to me youngest, what exactly did you and miss Pylo say to each other that is confusing?”

Aleph spoke back the conversation in a pasably accurate dictation. But Quarti seemed equally puzzled. Unlike the youngsters her brain was a singular instrument of direct communication and more or less bereft of the sub-vocal structures that the youngsters had. Emerging more or less as their otherwise off literature described it should have.

“I’m sorry... I don’t think I see what is missing either, but there must be a reason. Mistress Pylo why haven’t you marked the relays to not be moved by Tunie’s lesser selves?”

Pylo frowned deeper, this was not progressing how she expected.

“I’ve told them not to move them, but they eventually forget or die. The motiles don’t live very long and they don’t gossip really amongst themselves so I’d be telling them not to do things all the time and that would be exhausting and a waste of time since I usually don’t even need the relays”

Aleph shook her head and looked even more confused.

“Do you have to tell them constantly to not move the cargo? I thought you said you just tagged them”

“Of course I don’t have to tell them constantly, that’s why I tag the cargo. But why are you bringing that up again?”

Quarti and Aleph shared a look and Pylo huffed and decided to skim aleph’s deeper impulses to try and read just what all of this was about. But it was even more confusing.

All she could see was something that suggested Pylo was blind? What didn't she see? What was so obvious that it utterly baffled BOTH of them?!

▙◀’s air shaking instrument and resonance signals chimed cheerfully behind them.

“Ah yes, this is an excellent introduction to what I was intending to demonstrate for this lesson”

[https://i.imgur.com/cW7nGSy.png]