“Now then, throughout all of Redweed we make use of mass transit anchor tubes like this one. Each loop is cycled into progressively faster and higher volume tubes and wrapped in protective crash mesh and shock absorbing padding rated to the transit speed-”

Aleph raised a hand and spoke up quickly.

“What vehicles do you use in the tubes?”

The guide wobbled a moment then responded, both with text and verbal response over the speaker.

“It varies with the passenger morphology but in most cases use of a transit hook is standard. As your guide I will of course facilitate your transits myself to facilitate your handicap prosthesis”

One of the guide’s limbs emerged from its face to gesture at the legs of the bubble bot before slipping back into the rest of the mass.

They continued along sort of skipping and climbing in a drifting path across the space that Aleph was more and more thinking of as the ‘train station’ of redweed.

Sure it was bigger than the entire valley of Aoria. And yes the incredible spires and cities that shot up out of the flat expanse again and again looked bigger than the richest and biggest metropolitan centers of all of terra.

Sure each ship of which she had counted dozens had facilities that made the edgewall port that had been the pride and mastery of terran engineering seem small and crude.

But the way things moved, the way crowds of ‘people’ seemed to mostly be distractedly going about their lives carrying/pushing hulking crates or just stopping to chat with one another?

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

The probably shopkeepers and the workers and the strange pale sentinels just floating in utter stillness watching everyone?

It was kind of like a train station.

Bigger than a country.

“Now then we won’t be taking this transit loop as it only goes up to the docking cradle loops and grist refineries for ship materials but if you look around you can already see several examples of the quaint and rustic charm that is found all throughout the periphery districts of redweed-”

“Hey, what are those big pale things? The ones with red lines and blue eyes?”

The figure rolled up to peer up at the pale delta of one of the strange figures then tumbled back around and spoke cheerfully.

“Ah those are the dockyard security! They are public servants. Don’t worry about their fierce and rugged appearance they are all perfectly civil and well bred dragoons. All security staff in peripheral districts of Redweed have a Dragoon contingent and they are all from well established families! Here in Accelerata we pride ourselves in the security staff being very carefully vetted for clean psych profiles and friendly demeanors... If we should become separated seek out one of those figures with the pale coloring and red signaling band. Those are on duty security and will contact necessary ministry.”

Aleph blinked a bit then looked at Omega.

“So... the cops are bigger than my parent’s house here... that’s good?”

Omega shrugged.

“I suppose it would help with intimidation a bit? Although honestly I think they look kinda cute and cuddly”

Quarti nodded happily and brightened up with a grin.

“They sing super nice too! Always humming and checking with all everyone else wise of them like websong”

Their Guide stopped a moment and tumbled back around to look at Quarti.

“You should probably not give unsolicited signal traffic to bystanders, serviles or security staff. It can be distracting and confusing and you haven’t had your protocols added to the lexamap of the district yet as it was not included in the supplied materials for this interpretation suite... If you’d like I could take you to a local branch of the ministry of external affairs to run you through the documentation process but that might take a little while-”

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Omega chimed in.

“How long would that normally take? What would it entail?”

The guide bobbed a bit and rolled to face Omega.

“Please excuse me I am running your time names through a few times to make sure I understand them correctly... But tentatively It should take approximately sixty hours to get a full spectrum of tests... unless you have a digest you can provide of the entire logistical underpinnings from first order entropics that is?”

Omega frowned a little bit.

“Wait just a little while ago you ran our entire language through some kind of translation wizardry in a few minutes... and now it takes over sixty hours?”

The figure huffed audibly but didn't do any motions to match it.

“That was an emergency situation and I was able to expedite for the spare processing power of several DISTRICTS. Also despite initial concerns your verbal and visual languages are of an incredibly low info density score. However your resonance protocols are many orders of magnitude higher than that on even brief entropic scanning.”

There was a huff and this time the guide spun a little bit around itself. Keeping eyes fixed on Omega.

”So we would be using only the local ministry’s resources and doing something significantly more difficult, using manual call and response investigation and research methods with one of you instead of having an easily segmentable digest of data... To be fair sixty hours is a very optimistic estimate as there are plenty of higher priority tasks the ministry is likely trying to process so we would also have to wait for the resources and space to be set aside... Is that what you really want to be doing?”

Omega seemed quieted by that, there was a lot of exasperated passion in that statement.

Aleph hummed and looked around at beings much like their guide, as well as strange little bug like things with long spindly antennae and a few things that she swore resembled color changing blankets.

Their conveyance was drawing a bit of a crowd in curiosity but there was no sound coming from the speaker. Just curious eyes of various colors. Some times there were no discernable eyes but Aleph could feel attention on them.

“Oh yeah! You’se are a lovely bitah-baller yon! How’s my words scrib wise to the slink with ya in that way invar? Would tcha be a sleek little escort for us like the hipsalicious player said or soft timid puffer fluff?”

And of course Quarti finally decided to actually speak in her usual way to their only line of communication in an alien world.

The figure just stared at quarti for a while, the sign kind of spasming towards several different shapes and random wriggling static like a nest of black worms having seizures.

“Excuse me?”

Aleph just put her face in her hands.

Omega tried to salvage the situation a bit.

“Sorry about that, Quarti is a bit of a eccentric linguist, she likes throwing archaic words into the mix to mess with Aleph. But I’m sure that probably translated really oddly so-”

“No no that translated very clearly, actually that was a fascinating blend of our records on the middle C’vork digests with the cadence of Aoria proper and A Klavtch diction modifier... Some of the word choice I can only presume was from the mother tongues of one of those three but either way no I understood perfectly”

Aleph blinked at their guide several times from between her fingers, face starting to burn up with shame. If half of what Quarti had just suggested translated through...

“I was just taken back by the proposition no I’m sorry I’ve already got a planned budding quartet for me and we are quite happy together. However if you like I could take you to either a reproductive servicer or the entertainment district depending on the specific reason for-”

Omega and Aleph quickly tackled Quarti before she could say anything else.