Memory transcription subject: Maeve, Temporary Resident of Venlil Prime, Integration Program Subject
Date [standardized human time]: Sept 11th, 2136. Start of 2nd Claw.
Ok, maybe the Warren bed isn’t so bad.
While true, it would have been a mistake to stretch out on this bed, and just as bad to curl up, it was in fact quite comfortable to hang my feet off the raised lip and rest my back flat on the level center. I was also very pleased to see that Alvi had become so comfortable with our ‘cuddle pile’ sleeping situation; the need for pajamas in this shared company was a bummer, but Alvi asleep on my chest more than made up for it.
The window took advantage of vertical mirrored slats that twisted to an opened or closed position. As they were solid, being closed afforded total blackness within the room; Curiously, these could also turn totally around to face inward, creating a mirrored wall. Ignoring the associations this brought to my memory, I thought about what we had planned today.
I checked the clock on the wall above the door. And remembered I still couldn’t read Venlilese. With a scowl of irritation, I assessed how badly I needed to be awake, or if I could convince myself to nod off again. My musing was interrupted, however, by a synthesized whistle from Valek’s pad by the bed, prompting my companions to stir.
Alvi stretched her legs while pressing further into my chest, and I returned the affection by holding her tighter. Valek was beneath my casted arm and ran his hand under my shirt and over my stomach; while I enjoyed the touch, this was far braver than I felt comfortable with Alvi in the room, so I pressed my elbow down on his head and he took the hint.
“Why are humans so comfortable??” Alvi groaned, and I returned,
“I could say the same for you, hun.”
“Alright, you two; we need to get going, or we will never leave.” Valek had climbed out of the bowl and started to brush the bed-head out of his wool. I gave Alvi a parting squeeze before lifting myself up and helping her from the bed before I grabbed my toothbrush.
“Any big plans this morning, or are we just heading straight to the Arcade?” I asked as I started my routine.
Alvi spoke up next, “I saw a Fruit Shack just outside, by the park. I think that would be a great breakfast!”
“Fruit Shack… It… Is!” Valek groaned as he pulled the brush through a stubborn mat.
“Yoo meeb a hanb wif bat?” I asked through my foaming toothpaste.
“Nah, it’s just a painful one.” He groaned, pulling steadily.
Alvi got up and helped him to free the mat, as I put on fresh clothes under my burka.
---
Stepping out into the day was immediately invigorating, and I was quickly enjoying the fresh air the constant breeze brought through the city. We started our walk to the cafe and it seemed the Forum was just as busy as when I last saw it. I did see some familiar wool patterns but it appeared to otherwise be an entirely different group. I had hoped to talk to these ‘Exterminators’ that Valek seemed so cold towards, but that would have to wait for another time.
The Fruit Shack seemed to be a simple grocer with a place to sit and a salad bar. The Shack fell silent when I stepped through the open entryway, though I tried my best to ignore it while we walked to the counter. Valek was the first to speak to the cashier.
“Hi! We would like two medium self-serve bowls, and one extra large, please.”
Bowls provided, we walked to the salad bar and I treated myself to a tour of Venlil Cuisine! I was intrigued how similar this was to a standard Mongolian Grill from back home, though minus the cooking and… everything else. I noticed they had a choice of thickened fruit juice blends, which they must use as a kind of vinaigrette.
Alvi noticed my hesitation and helped me choose from the bar. When Valek asked what was wrong, I reminded him I couldn’t read Venlil yet. “I know I will eventually; immersion programs are one of the most effective ways for humans to learn language, and this is as immersed as it gets! But it will take time.”
“If you’d like some help with that,” He answered after swallowing a piece of red-fleshed fruit, “I’m sure the Program can sponsor you to learn at the University. Maybe we can check that when we get back home?”
I nodded appreciatively and we sat down. The tables around us quickly vacated, so we set to finish our meal so we didn’t overstay our welcome.
Making short work of our meal and now fully awake, we started our walk to the Arcade. The… avoidance was starting to get to me, and I felt myself retreating into my head. Running songs through my mind had always been a great way for me to tune out what was around me and just keep moving.
---
Memory transcription subject: Valek, Venlil Tourist
Date [standardized human time]: Sept 11th, 2136. Middle of 2nd Claw.
Maeve had been inattentive for the majority of our walk, but as we entered the shadow of the Arcade, she stood straighter and stared at the giant building in front of us. It stood about three stories tall at the near wall, but quickly curved up to a massive dome, the center of which had to be ten stories! Maeve stood frozen while she took it in; I prompted Alvi to take her inside while I bought tickets.
Our bands attached, we walked together through the sliding double-doors, and were immediately hit by a wall of noise and color. The door opened out to a 2nd floor entrance, and the arcade itself was below us, filling a stepped bowl toward the center. We saw lines of arcade cabinets and machines blaring their jingles and gameplay while several Venlil of all ages were scattered around playing, watching, talking and walking in every direction, though without urgency. It seemed that no one had noticed us, and I hoped it would stay that way.
Maeve found her voice and asked as we stepped down the stairs, “Hey Alvi, do you remember the games the kids in the village mentioned? Something about a pond?”
“‘Fill the Pond’, yeah. They also mentioned ‘Tower Tipper’ and ‘Swingit’. Personally, Tower is my favorite, but I don’t want to make your uh… ‘exchange partner’ look bad.” Alvi eyed me over her shoulder with a teasing swish of her tail,
“Oh ho ho, you’re on!” I left Maeve’s side and bounded up to and in front of Alvi as we found the nearest Tipper cabinets. Alvi and I took the paired cabinets while Maeve stood between us. Our screens loaded up with an empty vertical column of play space, and our first piece appeared at the top of the frame and slowly drifted down. Alvi and I maneuvered it into place while another different piece loaded at the top of the screen. After our 6th piece, Maeve started humming a repetitive melody to herself, though my ears still caught it. Alvi was moving much faster than me and laid her 10th piece while I was still on my 7th, connecting a large chunk of yellow hexes. The high point value caused Shali to appear at the bottom of my board and they ate the red group I was working on.
“Oh, that’s different…” Maeve muttered between us. I had just connected two separate blue groups, causing a Laysi to drift over my screen and detach all of my hexes, allowing them to fill lower voids. Alvi’s board was nearly full, but she connected another group of yellow to her first, giving her both a laysi on her board and shali on mine. After placing her final piece and completing her board, barely 8 hexes of voids, I allowed mine to continue filling to completion, the contest a foregone conclusion.
“Eh, I was going easy on you. I am your host afterall; it would be rude to win the first game.” I flicked my ears dismissively while I tried to keep my thrashing tail out of her sight.
“Oh, you’re so kind, Valek. Thank you for letting me win, I’m sure it was really hard to play so poorly on purpose.” Her voice was dripping with condescension while she tried to peer under my arm to see my tail.
I was starting to bloom as my wool flared before Maeve touched my shoulder. “That was a really neat game! I’d love to try it, but we have games kinda like that on earth. If you don’t mind, I would like to try something different…” And she nodded her head toward a poster of upside-down venlil. Taking the hint, the three of us walked away from the classic arcade and worked our way through to the Dome entrance, passing by the Visor arcade as we went.
A tired looking Venlil was sitting at a small desk next to the entrance of the dome. He looked a bit young; this was likely their first job. He seemed rather out of it as we approached, barely noticing the presence of Maeve.
The three of us stepped up to the counter, myself stepping forward to speak to the attendant, “Hello! Three for the A-Grav, please! We already prepaid our bands.”
He blinked at us and jerked back. “Blah! Another one??”
I flicked my tail in confusion, “Not normally this busy, then?”
His tail dismissed the question, and he shifted his focus to Maeve behind me. “How many more of you are there?! I don’t want to be responsible for a pack of Predators in the Dome.”
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
Maeve stepped forward, and put her side to the attendant, “I am the only one I know of in the city, but I know there are other humans on the planet. Though I’m not surprised to hear someone else came to see an anti-agravity dome! We don’t have anything like this on Earth! Can you tell me how it works?”
“You… you want to know?” The boy’s ears shot up in surprise.
“Oh, absolutely!” Maeve’s voice was charged with enthusiasm, “I’ll admit that physics isn't my strong suit, but I will try to follow along.”
His tail started to swing excitedly, though he winced as it swayed to the right. “So the material we use for Anti-gravity is the same thing we use for Warp travel: we call them Warp Panels. Putting it simply, it creates a field of negative gravity, which cancels out the natural positive gravity of the planet. So technically, it isn’t ‘anti-gravity’, more just a specific place without the planet’s gravity.” He motioned us to follow him just a few tails to his right, where a panel was replaced by glass to display the dome’s shielding. He pointed out a thin sheet of iridescent crystal, under which was a busy lattice of circuitry. “We shield the whole Dome and floor in Warp Plates, and run a charge through them. That door,” his tail pointed at the bulkhead we saw earlier, “and the room it leads to are also shielded, but they are part of a separate circuit, so we can turn it on and off. The Dome proper is always on; the math worked out that it was more efficient to leave it on rather than power cycle every paw.”
Maeve looked at the material in wonder, evident even behind her veil. “That’s like what we used for our warp! But wait, they also used it for artificial gravity. How did that work?”
“That’s actually rather interesting!” the boy replied, now looking much calmer, “The plates have a polarity, so if the charge is sent in the opposite direction, it warps space in such a way that it makes positive gravity! So you place the plates at the ‘bottom’ of a ship, and you get pulled that way.”
Maeve picked up on and continued that thought, “Which means that if you arrange them equally in a sphere, then you have positive gravity in all directions, which is still a type of null-gravity! I gotcha!” She was still under her burka, but her excitement was evident in her voice.
“Well, not exactly.” He now seemed very eager to teach, “that would only be weightless in the center. You would be walking on the walls. These just cut off gravity. Honestly, the way you described it would be for a… massive… space station…”
A look of realization seemed to come across his face. “You could… you could create an ark like that… a big cylinder or sphere. Panels in the walls for gravity. You could… you could stay in space for years…”
Maeve giggled lightly, “I think you may be on to something; might want to write that down.” Maeve turned back to the desk and the venlil reflexively started to follow, Alvi and I just behind him.
“What would we look like at the end of it? Could something like that still be warp capable? Could something that large hide from the Arxur…?”
The boy was still deep in thought when we got to the desk, and I had to interrupt, “What’s your name, kid?”
The boy’s attention snapped back to me before they responded, “Shibek. But my friends call me Shishi,” as he retook his seat.
Maeve spoke behind me in her familiar ‘meeting a new venlil’ tone, “Hello, Shishi, my name is Maeve,” she laid a hand from her good side on Alvi’s shoulder, “this is Alvi,” She flicked a welcome at the boy, as Maeve swung her hand across her body to me, “and this is Valek. It is a pleasure to meet you.” Maeve bowed her head while I did the same.
“Wow… I… I’ve seen the news and listened to the radio. You and that other human are… nothing like what I've been told. Are all humans like you?”
Maeve shook her head slowly under her veil, “Not all, but many. At least I would like to think so. Never be afraid to meet a human, but always be afraid to meet a stranger.”
Alvi spoke up from beside Maeve, “And don’t forget to write down that Ark idea, before you forget.”
Shishi’s eyes went wider, “Y-Yeah, thank you! I hate to be a stickler but I’ll need you to tap your pads against this consent form, then you can put your stuff in the lockers. Those… uh… Drapes? Will have to go in the lockers too, as well as anything not attached to your bodies.”
We followed his instructions and tapped our pads to the consent form, then stowed our belongings before we stepped into the airlock. Thankfully Maeve had packed her hair wrap and mask as well, so she could remain under her contractually-obligated coverings while we were inside.
The inside was bare metallic grey with a button raised in the center of the wall and some rails on the walls, ceiling, and floor for gripping. The only defining feature of the floor being ‘the floor’ was a clean white sheen. An almost deliberately understated introduction to one of the wonders of our technology. “Well Maeve, Alvi; you ready?”
“Punch it!” They shouted in unison.
“Then hold on to your meal!” I squealed as I pressed the button. The doors immediately closed with a Shunk and the room began to hum with growing activity. After only a few moments my stomach flipped inside of me and I could feel my paws leave the ground. Maeve made an avalanche of sound as she struggled to redefine her orientation. Alvi squeaked and squealed alongside her while I held onto the rail by the button.
Thoroughly enjoying their struggle, I let them float for a moment before I pushed off the wall on an intercept course with Maeve; by now their panicked screaming had leveled out to joyous giggles and whistles. Maeve caught me and I used the momentum to grab a ceiling rail, the stability allowing Maeve to catch the same. She then used her newfound steadiness to reach out to Alvi and help her.
“That! Was an incredible first impression!” Maeve declared breathlessly.
“Welcome to the future!” I giggled, while another Shunk sounded from the other side of the room,
“Now for the actual dome!”
Memory transcription subject: Alvi, Venlil Tourist
Date [standardized human time]: Sept 11th, 2136. Middle of 3rd Claw.
On cue, the light dimmed to draw our attention to the opening airlock into the dome proper.
It was massive! A whole city cell entirely cut off from gravity! While there were several activities towards the ‘ground’ of the dome, there were plenty of people simply flying above everything in the upper area. Valek pulled himself to float by the door and gestured for us to follow. Maeve scooped me up and pulled us beside him. The room opened out to a massive cavity, with cushioned spheres suspended by soft cabling throughout. Along the ground were strewn several color-coded areas each labeled with their activity, one in particular was covered in splashes of color and separated by its own bulwark.
Valek started to point out the activities for our benefit. “Most people like to go to the Gym area and take selfies for Bleat. I’ve always liked the Station Builder area over there,” he pointed to the far left corner, the purple zone crawling up the far wall. “You get to snap blocks together to make neat things; people get really creative when you don’t have to fight gravity! The big one, though,” he pointed to the giant rectangular block in the middle, “is the Floating Maze. It’s a huge fun-maze with ropes and puzzles and mirrors… It's a lot of fun!”
His tail gave a conspiratorial sway. “It has a race option, as well as hidden activities inside!”
Taking in the incredible sight, I pointed at the bulwark. “What about there?”
“Oh, if we go there, we’ll want to do it last,” he explained, “it’s the Art Center. You can imagine how easy it can be to get messy in there.”
Maeve pointed at her white under-jumper, “Nah I think I’m fine with a no-floating-paint experience. But that Maze sounds really fun! What do you think, Alvi?”
“Only if I have a chance to beat Valek… again.” Valek met my eye and his ears fell flat against his head at my teasing.
Maeve’s voice took a softer tone, “As adorable as I find this, and as sure I am that I would win,” she took a moment to enjoy our playfully challenging gazes, “I think we should avoid separating while we are in a maze we have never been in. Let’s work together to find the exit, yeah?”
Mine and Valek’s tails slowed at the gentle admonishment, quickly followed by a flick of affirmation. We all pushed off the outer wall of the bulkhead; my aim was less than true, but Maeve caught me before I drifted too far. Valek was the first to the door, selected the ‘Puzzlers’ option, and we all floated through the door. The inside of the maze started in a simple rope room, giving newcomers the chance to get their bearings. Maeve pushed off the closed door behind us and grabbed a rope, pulling slightly to veer her course to another.
With a leap, I flung myself from the entrance toward one of the ropes. I might have been overzealous, and caught the rope hard with my diaphragm. Valek floated by and grabbed my paw, letting his momentum pull me from my rope, and we spun in the open air. I could feel myself blooming as our eyes met, before he let me go and I floated right into Maeve’s waiting arm. She caught me around the middle and we watched Valek float away on his altered course around a corner and down another hallway.
Maeve used her foot to push off of the wall behind us, and we started to catch up to Valek. Maeve let me go as she grabbed another line, and I continued down the hall while she pushed and pulled herself to get ahead of me. Even down a working arm, she was able to use her legs and feet to push and pull herself along the hallway with a grace I had found so…
We had just crossed into a large room, ropes webbed its corners though the center was open air. Valek had hid behind a corner and grabbed me as I floated past, Maeve having slowed her flight to drift gently through the open space. She twisted and contorted her body, creating lines of movement that seemed to stretch and extend beyond her form; she kicked her legs and pulled them inward, setting her body to spin. Valek and I watched transfixed at the performance; watched Maeve’s delicate shape dance in the air like a leaf in a gentle breeze. She flung her arm and legs out to halt her spin, as her earlier forward momentum slowly carried her to the opposite web of support lines.
Valek offered his paw to me and I took it, before he pushed us off to fly across the open space to meet her. She was laughing gleefully to herself as she twisted her arm against the rope to set her spinning again along a different axis.
Valek spoke as we reached her, “I had never seen you move like that Maeve! Is that a human dance from earth?”
Maeve arrested her flips and answered as her visor met our eyes, “It is, though I am far from studied; it is definitely much easier in zero-gravity. It’s called Ballet, and I had a few months of after-school classes when I was much younger. What you saw is the result of that, and mimicking what I saw from performances by professionals.”
“Why did humans learn to dance like that? Is it to attract a mate?” I asked, genuinely curious.
Maeve shrugged her shoulders, “Maybe it started that way, but the Ballet I know is a demonstration of artistic expression and physical exceptionalism. Imagine everything that I was doing, being done in slightly less than Venlil Prime’s gravity. Then remember that what I was doing was untrained, unpracticed, and very amateur.”
I could hear the smile behind her mask as she continued, “Seeing a true professional perform in zero gravity, or even just lesser gravity, would be an incredible show, and I would be very excited to see it!”
Valek seemed to take stock of his surroundings before his tail twitched in delight, “Oh, I know where we are! There’s this really neat puzzle room down this hall!”
Maeve saw his excitement and pulled me toward her, freeing Valek to go rocketing off down the hall of the near threshold. “I couldn’t figure it out last time, but I was just a pup with a bunch of other pups back then. I know it has something to do with reattaching lines in the right configuration,” Maeve and I were gently floating after him as he reached the corner of the corridor and pushed off around it, “but every time I got close--”
“Teeth! TEETH! PREDATOR!”
My tail kinked in worry, as Maeve threw us down the corridor with haste. “What the hell, Valek? There’s no Predators he-”
She halted us at the corner and let me go just in time to catch a retreating Valek.
“-EOLY SHIT!”