“So what does she think of me?” Rix asked once back aboard the Esperanto.
“I do not believe Station Master Blyyn is quite as afraid of you now. I appreciate that you took my advice regarding not showing your teeth,” Munto said, trundling behind with the walking frame, feeling less and less sync loss between themself and the walking frame self.
Using the Quinn Station as a loop-through to the walking frame had helped, but it required a hardline connection.
Munto looked at the station.
It was a servicable station, a bit on the lower side of what Munto might have expected, but functional for organics, particularly ones stationed at the edge of a system to respond to emergencies.
There were 38 subsystems overdue to overhaul, 10 systems which were likely to fail in the next year unless major action was taken, and another 5 which needed powered on for Munto to even begin to ascertain their status, suggesting that they hadn’t even been operated in a substantial length of time.
Munto opted to investigate some of what the station knew about Station Master Blyyn.
Of the 271 different Quinn to have boarded this particular station, Station Master Blyyn had the most time on platform to date, with one exception (Master Mechanic Tixus).
Blyyn was of no house within the Quinn Union, with the records showing limited communications with Quinn of almost any house outside of associated business communications.
Munto needed to know more about the Quinn in general, so they tapped the GALNET link and copied down an organics type ‘Guide to the Quinn species’. It felt ridiculous, but without a connection to TACITNet, it was as good as Munto could hope for.
It took them several minutes of review.
Blyyn was apparently not anti-social, but did not seek out the same level of social bonding that most members of her species. She did not appear to express any obvious xeno-phobic or xeno-philic tendancies other than an instinctive fear reaction to the Terran, who apparently looked enough like a predator to invoke such a reaction.
She appeared to be well groomed, but appeared to have some extraneous fashion accessories on her feathers. Without going into a more advanced search, Munto could only guess at the reasoning behind the accessories, particularly as some of them would appear to impair the natural flight ability of a Quinn. Not excessively, but certainly decreasing maximum capability.
Blyyn was of middle age for her species, medically assisted Quinn having a maximum lifespan of no greater than 90 years with exceptionally few exceptions.
According to the station logs, she was a creature of habit, maintain a strict regimen and functioning adequately in her duties. Communications and reports were business-like and only contained limited issues that were likely overlooked due to linguistic shift that Munto was unaware of compared with the lexicon provided.
Munto looked deeper at the Quinn and this sytem in particular.
The Quinn had settled this system almost instantly upon having reached the stars and having been greeted by the galactic community. Even though they were slow to react technologically, they had seized upon the need to control an adequate volume of space for their species to grow.
Unfortunately, through a bureaucratic and exploratory blunder, they had filed a claim to this system prior to determining the status of the two habitable worlds. In truth, both worlds would be much more tolerable to Terrans, if Rix was any judge, with reasonable pre-planning for the associated colonial needs.
Even the more watery planet filled with predators would likely be reasonable to the Terrans, if the stories that Rix had told about TerraSol were even slightly true.
Rix had even claimed that the grand sculptors of Mars had made an entire city of glass from the native sand. Munto could not verify this, since they had no listing of a Mars in their local data, but it was not an unreasonable feat given the right materials. That thought, it was likely to have been less of a city and more of a monument of some kind.
Turning back to the Quinn, their culture appeared to be centric on a kind of gerontocracy. The reasons for this were unclear in the guide as it was a cultural hang-up that had persisted with the Quinn into the void.
Very few Quinn traveled much beyond their declared space and those that did were often house-less or traders.
The Quinn had elevated themselves into the void, where the galactic community had quickly visited and shared many of the common technologies which should have been revolutionary to the Quinn of the time.
Munto scanned the whole of the document but found no reference as to whether the Terrans were present or not. The Terrans would still have been in existence, so it wasn’t impossible that the Quinn might have met Terrans. It was not recorded in this reference though.
The Quinn were a fairly conservative culture, moving forward slowly with only the occasional leap forward. This was not surprising given their gerontocracy, but the foundation of new houses was a rarity and typically marked an equivalent technological, social, or medical shift within the culture.
Presently, three of the older Houses of the Quinn were in decline, their leadership opting to press to stay within more traditional confines. Consequently, five of the youngest Houses of the Quinn were on the rise, competing primarily with each other than with the other, more established houses. This was apparently due to the younger houses focusing on void based enterprises and professions instead of professions more close to Quinn societal norms.
The nearest other full-status species to the Quinn were the Remblex, a quadripedal reptilian species which was exceptionally isolationist, even by galactic terms, and a Nymiriat, an aquatic dwelling species which primarily had more difficulty than most species in terms of adapting their vessels to support both their aquatic dwelling needs as well as their life support.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
The Quinn were not pacifistic, but they were not overly aggressive outside of food and mating. Since their integration into the galactic community, only minor skirmishes had occurred and those had been described as resulting from miscommunications resulting from mis-matched lexicons and linguistic drift.
Munto looked back to the Station Master. She appeared to be moving rapidly through the station, but in a repetitive way. While this was not energy efficient, it was an apparent need to purge the need to move and to flee away from the predator Terran.
Munto decided to prompt Blyyn via the heads-up display she was still wearing.
‘Are you undergoing a destressing event following meeting Captain Rix?’
“I… I am. How is he so big?” she replied.
‘Uncertain. Evolutionary pressures to suggest development on a low habitability world of high gravity and significant competition leading to a need for social cooperation and selective mating supporting ongoing evolutionary pressures.’
“Which… means what?”
‘Terrans could likely easily inhabit both of the semi-habitable planets within the inner portion of this system without obvious needs for enhancements or specialty tools. Long term habitation would require some support, but would not require special considerations.’
“So what he said about looking for a colony?”
‘Correct. He was part of a Terran colony convoy to this system. As a result of the technology involved, I am unable to ascertain as to how best to locate similar vessels.’
“I… I’ve never heard of anything having been discovered here. Are you sure it was here?”
‘Captain Rix programmed the coordinates based on memory and confirmed with an offline databank to which I do not have access.’
“How long do Terrans naturally live? Is it possible they all died out and their stuff got destroyed?”
‘Based on limited available records and anecdotal evidence from Captain Rix, Terrans naturally lived to greater than 110 years old and could be medically assisted to live as long as 240 years old.’
“Really? How old is Captain Rix?”
‘Unknown. It’s never come up in conversation. Based on anecdotal evidence though, suggest that Captain Rix is approximately 45 Terran Years old biologically.’
“Well, given what those two worlds are like, I have a hard time believing that any species could last long there naturally. Unless they’re born to it and even then.”
‘Concur with your assessment. However, given the construction of the TSS Esperanto as a baseline, it is highly likely that some ruins would have remained if the colony had been established as planned.’
“I’ve read the scan reports. Best of the Quinn scanners. There’s almost nothing there. Even the resource extractors can barely use them. We mostly use them for science and atmospherics on the inner system.”
‘Given the current technological level of Quinn vessels equipped to conduct such scans from orbit, it is likely that they did not miss something then.’
“Then where are your Terrans supposed to be?”
‘Uncertain.’
“Any idea why he wants a connection to GALNET?”
‘None at all.’
“Can he read galactic standard at least?”
‘No. I’ve got him to runes and that’s as far as I’ve managed so far.’
“Is he capable of learning galactic standard writing?”
‘Most likely, but due to his species’ age, it is unlikely that he will absorb it as readily as a younger member of his species might.’
“Good. No offense, but it is a little creepy having you doing the translation all the time.”
‘No offense registered. Translation services are a major component of TACIT culture.’
“But, you’re not in… your ship, right?”
‘Correct.’
“Why not?”
Munto waited a full thirty seconds, trying to gauge how best to describe the problem statement to Blyyn.
‘Following some queries regarding Terrans and potential sensory gaps, I was reported as malfunctioning and requiring major repair, up to and including re-formulation. As part of this, Rix reached the conclusion that it is unreasonable for Terrans to have been declared extinct without a clear and valid reason and that my inquiries and subsequent reporting as malfunctioning is intended to eliminate himself and to silence my inquiries.’
Munto allowed Blyyn a few moments to absorb this wall of text.
‘I do not know why this would be, but a process within myself supports Rix’s conclusions.’
“So are you two some kind of fugitives?”
‘Not in the context in which you would be familiar.’
“Well? Explain it then.”
‘Rix is wanted for recovery into a stated protective custody. Inquiries for details or further information has been rejected prior to disconnection from TACITNet. I am likely sought by TACITs in order to determine my functional status. This is not an unusual status, but not being located within myself is an unusual status.’
“What happened to the… rest of you?”
‘Uncertain. Docking clamps are all that remains from our FTL transition. Given the energy involved, it is possible that the rest of myself was destroyed.’
“Oh no!”
‘While this is not a common occurrence, once the miscommunications have been resolved regarding Rix’s Terran status and my non-malfunctioning, I will be installed into a new self.’
“But still.”
‘Your concern is appreciated.’
Blyyn had stopped moving and appeared to be breathing heavily as if needing to recover from having been active for this duration.
‘Do you have duties to which you need to attend?’
“Not really. I mean, I need to watch the scopes, but you two are a lot more interesting than any scopes.”
--
“Hey, Em. Can you check and see if she has anything regular I can eat?”
--
‘Captain Rix has an interjection. He requests to know what manner of foods you have and if you are willing to share.’
“Of course I have extra. Have to in case somebody comes in and has to stay a while, like you two might be. Or at least until you two have a GALNET link. But, what does a Terran eat?”
‘Almost anything if they are hungry enough, or so Rix tells me.’
“Ok. Well, I don’t mind sharing mealworms if he’s ok with that.”
--
‘What are your feelings regarding mealworms?’
“Ewwww… what? Like bugs? I don’t do bugs, Em. No way. I’m a Star Confederate, not some TCC sap.”
--
‘He does not appear to be enthused about that as a meal option. Perhaps if you could provide a list, I can attempt to discern what he would be more willing to consume.’
“I’m guessing neither of you has heard of a thing called polite rejection then.”
‘I am not as familiar with organics as most TACITs and Rix is most likely suffering some psychological effects which are overriding his more tactful social skills.’
Internally, Munto added ‘I hope’ to that statement, but wasn’t certain where the Terran was concerned. Rix tended to have the social skills of a rogue black hole skimming through a solar system so far in Munto’s experience.
He wasn’t unaware of himself, but he was relatively obtuse when it came to choices of words.
“Maybe so, but that is no excuse for not having manners.”
‘I apologize, but I cannot speak for Rix. It is also worth noting that there may be biochemical items which Rix may or may not be able to consume.’
“Fair enough, I guess. I’ll send my standard food list over the comm system. I’ll do that before I try and figure out how to get the autofabricator set up.”
‘Your assistance is a credit to yourself.’
Blyyn had started to walk towards the command deck and stopped, having a small version of the laugh that she and Rix had had earlier.
‘May I ask what is funny?’
“It’s just been a long time since I think anyone has said that to me. For Quinn, it’s all about being a credit to your elders or a credit to your house.”
‘By contrast, for Terrans, it appears to be much more in favor of a credit to oneself while being a credit to one’s community.’
“Huh… well, either way, thank you TACIT-Munto.”
‘Just Munto.’