“So what kind of trade do we need to work out for this GALNET link?” Rix asked.

“Given that it is likely no more than a simple matter and energy feed to the autofabricator, similar to the onboard portable printer, I do not expect there to be any request for trade,” Munto said.

The pair were back aboard the Esperanto and Rix had the gravity set to his normal (which meant that the walking frame wasn’t going much of anywhere in a hurry).

“Gotta plan to trade. It’s wrong to expect help and not have anything to offer in trade, at least if its a non-essential.”

“What did you have in mind?” Munto prompted.

“I guess I was thinking about maybe some data files. Maybe some Terran entertainment,” Rix said and appeared to think further. “Nah, given her reaction, Terran entertainment would probably be like watching an ultrahorror movie.”

“I would concur with that assessment, but I am unable to confirm as to why that would be, given the limited information regarding Quinn,” Munto said, re-browsing the Guide to Quinn in the background.

“So what is a Quinn? The Station Master, uh, she, right?” Rix started, hands frozen in the air mid-gesture, waiting for the ‘confirmation’ rune from the walking frame. “She’s like a kind of bird right?”

Munto took a moment to compare this particular word against the lexicon of the Terran. Interestingly, Blyyn was both a feathered avian being and, to refer to the guide and the lexicon simultaneously, a beautiful female-type of the Quinn.

“In a manner of speaking, that is not an entirely incorrect assessment. It is exceedingly simplified and I would advise caution in describing Station Master Blyyn as such. While I have no reason to suppose that such language would necessarily be considered a slur, there is a non-zero chance that it would be construed as such,” Munto replied.

Rix appeared to be thoughtful for a few moments.

“Weird though. Meeting a xeno and she’s a bir… a Quinn.”

“Please explain how this situation is ‘weird’ as you describe it.”

“I never really figured I’d meet a full-sapient xeno. Off-world wallabys, xeno-hounds, even some ostrich-like critters on Prixia. It just never seemed like a real possibility, what with all the worlds we’ve already settled,” Rix shrugged and leaned back.

“Based on the available information I have retained, given the size of space and the normal time continuum of a species as well as the Great Filters, it was by virtue of Terran intervention that a number of species have reached the stars, having been elevated artificially, to even coexist within the same/similar timeframe,” Munto flashed the rune for ‘entropic demise’ which Rix took a moment to look up.

“So what do you get a Quinn, especially one who lives this far out?” Rix eventually asked.

“Given the information provided by the station databases, I believe some simple Quinn amenities would be welcome. Failing that, I do not have any suggestions.”

“Well, given all the concern over germs and viruses and the like, we probably don’t want to wander around too many people unless we have to,” Rix nodded.

“It may be possible for me to collect some samples from you and have Blyyn scan them to determine if any biological concerns arise between naturally occurring biochemistries as well as microorganisms,” Munto suggested.

“What good would that do?” Rix asked.

“It would allow me to establish a baseline for healthy microorganisms within your system as well as providing a baseline between whether you can be around others without a sterilization field,” Munto explained.

“So I don’t get sick or so they don’t?”

“Both of those are potential outcomes. I would advise you to recall similar cases within your own species, since it is a sufficiently common issue without being compounded by stasis utilization.”

“Don’t they have some kind of super meds to protect them?” Rix seemed to be joking, but then flashed a rune for ‘serious inquiry’.

“I cannot speak to that. The medical system onboard this station is fairly basic and possesses some medication templates, but nothing that I would suppose as being a ‘cure-all’, if I’m interpreting this lexicon correctly in your vernacular.”

“Fair enough I guess. It still feels strange to be this far in the future and there’s just not that much more,” Rix shrugged again.

“Please elaborate.”

“There’s no super-tech. None of the items that we were researching or had in our stories of ridiculous technology that shouldn’t work or wouldn’t likely work within our lifetimes. It’s all so… basic. The tech in that bay. Sure there’s a few things I couldn’t read or maybe work, but it looked like a standard outpost. Other than the xenos, there’s just nothing to really get excited about,” Rix gesticulated rather vigorously at the region around them.

“Is there a particular type of technology you would want to determine if it exists?” Munto was connected to the GALNET and poised to search.

“Teleporters. I always wanted to see them make that work,” Rix said without even a moment’s hesitation.

“Teleporters being translocation of a living being from one location to another without the organic being created and destroyed to eliminate an issue with semi-instantaneous cloning?” Munto asked, skeptical already.

“That’s it. It’s something I grew up with hearing about. They talked about making it possible with people within a few years of the colony. Rumors were the Flix already has some prototypes they were able to send creatures through.”

Munto provided several of the related search terms to a generic GALNET query mechanism.

Quickly, Munto was inundated with all manner of fictional accounts of that particular type of technology. It was in fact not as simple as the Terran appeared to suggest, and while it was a common theme within the fictional accounts, no practicable versions appeared to exist.

“You are correct that such technology does not appear to exist,” Munto said after a few minutes worth of review.

“See? I want to know what the Flix managed. I’ll bet they made it work. But that’d be even stranger since nobody else appears to have that kind of tech.”

“Do you have an alternate that is perhaps more likely?” Munto requested.

If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

“Well, I mean, I know you exist, so that’s something at least,” Rix shrugged and appeared to think a bit more. “Has anyone built a Nyvenium or a Brosyn Sphere?”

Munto felt utterly strange at finding neither as a reference within the lexicon, although they suspected that it had to do with the Terran’s understanding of the concepts.

“I am unable to determine the base concept between either, so clarification is needed.”

“Megastructures, so big they encompass an entire star,” Rix grinned, his eyes slightly glazed as though seeing such a thing within his own memory only.

Munto ran a query for stellar scale megastructures. This too was met with significant quantities of finctional accounts as well as a number of economics arguments by various species for and against the construction of such structures, relative to a perceived benefit or loss. One such economic argument considered the use of a complete stellar enclosure, channeling the enclosed energy into a means of powering computing structures capable of outclassing TACITs by several orders of magnitude as well as providing a system with all the energy capacity it would need without any supplements or extraneous technologies.

The counter to this was that such a stellar enclosure would severely impact the utilization of the system beyond the enclosure and the enclosure itself would suffer severe issues, not only with material construction needed to complete such a task, but would likely require near constant adjustment to ensure that tidal forces and void debris did not impact the operation of such an enclosure.

One group of beings had broached the subject with an enclosure that was an incomplete variant, thereby significantly limiting the material costs, the logistics of support, and the impact to the system beyond.

The rebuttal to this argument was that the cost-benefit ratio for such an endeavour would not be sufficient for a species to warrant taking the time and energy in creating such a structure. Particularly when fusion systems were so common and so easy to maintain at the smaller level. This rebuttal even included the economic difficulties that were commonly experienced in attempting to maintain large fusion systems, let alone a stellar sized one.

The arguments appeared to devolve from scientific concerns to more personal and/or species centric concerns, but it had made its point.

“Due to the economics involved in the construction of most stellar enclosures, even partial ones, it does not appear that any have been made by any species on record,” Munto told Rix.

“That’s what I mean. It’s weird. And frankly boring.”

“In the midst of your contemplation of your place in the present time compared with what was presupposed by the researchers and fictional accountants of your time, I have been given a menu of the food stores available from Blyyn. She has indicated that she would appreciate gratitude in this gesture,” Munto decided to shift the discussion, deciding to look around at technologies that may interest the Terran as being ‘futuristic’.

“Is this because I don’t want mealworms?” Rix asked, flashing the ‘self-awareness’ rune, which didn’t entirely fit, but the discrimination between that and the rune the Terran meant was to do with emotional context that Munto would have to revisit at a later time.

“In part. It appears that your rejection of sharing mealworms with her was perceived as rude, in conjunction without request for an alternate menu,” Munto said. “I believe I was able to pursuade her that it was also a matter of bio-compatibility that we receive the menu.”

“I shouldn’t like to accidentally have a nice big bowl of arsenic,” Rix leaned forward and looked at the menu that Munto had just sent to the scroll.

“I do not have insight into your food systems. Is there a malfunction that I need to be aware of?” Munto asked.

“Not exactly. It’s just that it’s a set menu with only a few months worth of stocks,” Rix scrolled, appearing to squint at various items.

“It is not equipped to mass repurposing system?” Munto was surprised to ask this, given how familiar the Terran had been with the portable printer and the mass scoop.

“Not on a ship the size of the Esperanto. Maybe a destroyer sized, but that’s just a matter of logistics. Hard to pack several months worth of rations on a ship that size. Most smaller ships just pack rations though. Not even sure my reactor could run one if I had one,” Rix said, appearing to be adding annotations to various items on the menu.

“Such as the portable printer and mass scoop that are currently connected to this vessel?” Munto suggested.

Rix looked up a moment and over at the walking frame.

“Yeah, something like that maybe. I guess we’d have to check and make sure we aren’t going to run out of reaction mass trying to make me six meals a day. Plus we still have to figure out templates that work. Last time we tried, we got raw meat and some kind of jerky. Might have been some kind of xeno-goat by the taste,” Rix cocked his head to one side.

“Do you not have a means of meal preparation?” Munto pressed, having partially solved the issue internally thus far.

“Not on the Esperanto. They left that part of the galley off so they had enough room for all the shielding.”

“How is it then that I have seen you consume warmed foods and beverages?”

“Chemical packs designed to provide concentrated thermal energy. They didn’t even give me space for a radio-reheater. I mean, I was only supposed to be onboard for a month or so and then they’d have moved me over to working station to surface duty, so it wasn’t going to matter in any case,” Rix shrugged.

“Is the Esperanto rated for atmospheric flight? I am uncertain I would agree with an assessment that it is,” Munto looked at the drives via a virtual side-eye.

“Nope. They were going to strip it down in orbit for parts. Or add some boosters once we got here so I could land it and they could break it down for parts there,” Rix appeared to look longingly at the walls around the pair.

“Would this not pain you as the captain of this vessel?” Munto asked, seeming to sense what the Terran wasn’t expressing in runes.

“It would have, but it wasn’t like my last ship, the Essentia. That was my baby…. I wonder what happened to it,” Rix asked, thumbing the rune for ‘rhetorical question’.

Munto had already presupposed the Terran was asking a rhetorical question. The Terran was full of them and truthful answers were rarely if ever welcome.

The idea that this Essentia wasn’t broken into its component pieces somewhere in years past or otherwise utilized or lost infinitesimally unlikely, and Rix almost certainly knew this. Munto guessed that more of what Rix was asking was less about the ultimate fate of the vessel and more about what manner of travels the ship had taken since he had relinquished it.

“To whom did you relinquish the vessel?” Munto tried.

“A relative. She’d just graduated with her basic. I figured it would be best if the Essentia found its way with her. Especially since I wouldn’t be around to keep an eye on either of them,” Rix’s eyes glazed with memory.

The pair sat in silence for a period of time.

“Why did you believe it to be unlikely that you would not see them again?” Munto guessed.

“I lied before,” Rix said quietly.

Munto checked through their conversations with the Terran and tried to determine when or where the Terran had lied.

“About what?” Munto asked.

“The trip was a lot longer before I crashed out,” Rix said.

“By how much?” Munto tried looking back through their stellar cartographic records, trying to guess just how far the Terran could have been coming from.

“Ten weeks.”

“Ten weeks in realspace time is not a substantial difference,” Munto relayed. It was still a difference, but not the difference that the Terran was making it seem.

“Ten weeks in jumpspace,” Rix corrected.

Munto instantly started running the numbers and everything the Terran had told them about the jump drive.

Ten weeks in jumpspace at a near 1:10 ratio (Munto using the departure chronometer’s differential with the attached station chronometer and adjusted for the timing provided by the jump drive’s systems to get a more exact measurement) equated to nearly 100 weeks in realspace.

Given further the semi-log function for ‘long jumps’ as far as Rix had described, in 11 weeks, the Terran would have crossed the whole of acknowledged galactic society, crossing from the most distant colony of the Bintu to the homeworld and sole system of the Wyrtic in a fraction of the time that such a journey should normally take and experiencing far less than that time within the same degree of travel.

It… it was staggering to even consider. Such a trip would have been nearly impossible for early FTL travel. Munto even calculated the standard number of jumps that would be required with conventional FTL to cross such a distance in even reasonable amount of time.

“Why did you lie?” Munto asked, still running numbers.

“Because its what I told myself. If I didn’t like it, it was only a week’s trip back. It’s what I told them all. Just going to go set up the new colony and I’d be back in a few years,” Rix said, his voice still quiet, the normally moving hands seemingly frozen in position.

“Except you suffered an equipment failure,” Munto commented, trying to make Rix feel better.

“There’s no colony here. Never was and they’ve never heard of Terrans. Means we never made it. Maybe it means nobody made it,” Rix’s voice seemed almost defeated.

“How is that likely given the significant degree of protection and effort placed into ensuring vessel operation?” Munto asked.

“Practically zilch except for one idea,” Rix’s voice seemed to take on a bit of edge in that moment.

Munto kept silent, but flashed the ‘elaboration requested’ rune.

“Sabotage.”