68:9:30 (22nd February 2001)
— Contact plus 05.05.20
The journey to where they'd be getting their language lessons was longer than Beth had expected yet, when she thought about it, absurdly short.
It hadn't taken her very long to entirely lose any sense of what time it was. They did keep to a day-night cycle on the ship, but the miserable delirium of the side-effects of the vaccine that first day had fucked up any ability to guess how much time was passing — also, she thought their hosts might have exploited that as an opportunity to tweak them around to the local time where they were going? She was pretty sure the day-night cycle they ended up on was moved around a bit from the start, but it was hard to say exactly. The only clocks anywhere were what Beth suspected was the time displayed on the computers in their rooms, but she still couldn't read their script, so.
And of course there was no real sunlight at all, any sense of day or night totally artificial. They had a regular meal schedule, the lights brightening during the 'day' and dimming during the 'night', but that was it. The environment in here did vary but not in any natural way — the view outside of their dome would often be the glowing blue maelstrom of the alien's faster-than-light travel, sometimes instead the star-speckled blackness of space, rarely a planet or space station or something near enough to make out. The breaks in proper space were pretty short, and spaced irregularly, the different legs of their trip of uneven lengths and obviously not synced with the day-night cycle at all, the only thing they had for a sky not helping Beth keep a sense of time.
As vaguely disorienting as it was to have no sunlight or anything, and how fucking wild it was that they were travelling through space right now, the trip was very uneventful. In the 'morning', Beth would wake up to find snacks and hot drinks already available at the table — there was something they had that was definitely a stimulant of some kind, but she didn't think the stuff in the 'tea' was actually caffeine, something else — followed normally a couple hours after she was up with a proper breakfast whipped up by Thisaku and his crew. They'd be left mostly to their own devices through the morning, staff around if they needed anything and a rotation of stuff playing on the display, until lunch. Beth got the feeling these people weren't big on lunch as a meal — there'd be snacks, but they seemed pretty light, really.
In the afternoon, more staff would show up, with prearranged videos to go up on the display to accompany whatever they were on about. Very basic stuff to do with Inapu-Itarisan, the different peoples there were here, some etiquette, some introductory Minnisiät lessons — mostly saying hello and the like, you know, nothing serious. (They could have given them more in-depth lessons than that, but Beth guessed the programme wasn't designed for omniglots.) Interestingly, it seemed like the insignia for Inapu-Itarisan functioned sort of like a mnemonic? Like, the hand wasn't just a literal hand, it was also symbolic. As she slowly absorbed more Minnisiät, she kind of realised that on her own — Inapu-Itarisan literally meant something of five — but the animated videos someone had prepared made it more obvious. From what Beth understood, there were five basic principles their government was based off of, though it was hard to say exactly what those were supposed to be, what with not being able to get precise explanations in words — she was pretty sure three of them were common defence, local autonomy for the members, and the abolition of slavery (mandatory for membership), which seemed good so far? Whatever, politics wasn't her game.
Beth picked up a few national(?) names through these little lessons, mostly for the people on the staff working with them. Shár-ÿḳl-korlåe's people were called Chiss, or Kisa in Minnisiät — and, curiously, didn't seem to be members of Inapu-Itarisan at all? The explanation wasn't super clear, but she understood they were some kind of diaspora population or something? Some might be citizens of one member state or another, but most were associated somehow with one of the... The terminology was hard to figure out. One of the organisations in the greater structure between the members of Inapu-Itarisan, you know — sort of like if UN citizenship were a thing, if that made sense. They did have their own polity out there, Beth understood, but that state wasn't a member of Inapu-Itarisan, the ones here with them some kind of exiles or defectors or something? It wasn't very clear.
(The feeling Beth got was that the humans already among Inapu-Itarisan were in a similar position — Hermione's theory about these alien humans being a diaspora population was looking good so far.)
The country Quńalhi and Thisaku and Eqathi came from was somewhat more complicated, in part because they seemed to be very racially diverse. In Minnisiät, their country — the big long snaking branching one on the map, as Beth had guessed — was called Sijanu-Itarisan, their people called Sija. Though, Sija referred to any citizen of the country, not a particular species — Quńalhi, Thisaku, and Eqathi would all be called Sija in Minnisiät. From what Beth understood of what they were told, Minnisiät didn't actually distinguish a lot of the racial groups in Sijanu-Itarisan at all? They were all just called Sija, and that was it, unless they happened to be a species that had a preexisting name in Minnisiät people didn't bother distinguishing them.
In their own language, their people were called Tommutškorilhańath-monatšeri, which was a hell of a mouthful, normally shortened to monatšeri — like Sija, this referred to all the citizens of their country, regardless of species. They did have species-specific terms in their own language, though. Quńalhi's species was the largest group — from the bits and piece of the explanation Beth understood, just a plurality and not even an outright majority — who, when it was necessary to specify, were called kharson. Apparently there were also racial groups within the species too — Quńalhi was technically kiśańalh-kharson, but she said nobody really bothered with that most of the time (Beth was pretty sure), they generally just called themselves monatšeri.
Thisaku and Eqathi's people also mostly just called themselves monatšeri, but there were species-specific terms. Thisaku's people were called sotšuńalh, and Eqathi's were called tewari. The explanation wasn't super clear, thanks to the language barrier, but Beth was pretty sure the sotšuńalh and tewari had both been enslaved by the kharson, a long long time ago — by the sound of it, a massive slave revolt had overthrown their old government literally thousands of years ago. (Long before Inapu-Itarisan was around, anyway, the language barrier made it difficult to be too specific.) All that was far enough in the distant past that it wasn't really a big deal anymore, just part of their national history. Though, the impression Beth got from Thisaku was that it was part of why Sija were generally super enthusiastic about Inapu-Itarisan — their whole national mythology was built around a slave revolution, so they could be zealous about the anti-slavery angle Inapu-Itarisan had going on, tended to be disproportionately represented in their military and shite.
(In fact, the more Beth heard them say monatšeri, the more she got the feeling that it literally meant freedmen.)
There were human Sija too, apparently — Thisaku called them śoni. Beth thought that might be a racial term, or at least specific to Sija, because he didn't call the humans in their group śoni. She wasn't sure what was going on there, exactly.
And, of course, they learned a little bit about Aq̄hija's people too, since they would be hosting them. They weren't told very many terms in Aq̄hija's language, in part because Beth assumed they thought it'd be difficult for humans to pronounce — also, the whole point of this exercise was to learn Minnisiät, so, minimal distractions. Her people called themselves Pajc̄üɦoqa — Pekuöka in Minnisiät, but Beth got the native pronunciation close enough after a couple tries and stuck with it — and they were relatively new to galactic civilisation as well, only in space for two or three generations at this point. Their first contact with aliens had been the funny two-mouthed aliens Beth remembered from the intro video, called wakali — some of the staff actually pronounced it Vagâri, which Beth guessed was closer to the correct pronunciation, the allowed sounds in Minnisiät too restrictive. Their entire civilisation had been enslaved by the wakali, for what sounded like at least a couple decades, until the war Inapu-Itarisan had waged against the wakali brought them to their space, the Pajc̄üɦoqa enthusiastically aligning with their liberators.
The impression Beth got was that this had actually been quite early in the history of Inapu-Itarisan — Aq̄hija mentioned Mítth-räw-nuruodo, who from one of the videos they were shown Beth thought was, like, the founding leader of Inapu-Itarisan? And that founding was really not that long ago, from what she understood all of their support staff had even been alive when he died (in battle, not from old age). She wouldn't have thought the country was that young, been around for maybe only forty years or so at the most? It was hard to say, her basic Minnisiät and the videos and stuff only communicated things in broad strokes, but something like that. Galactic civilisation in general was much older than that, of course, but still.
But anyway, the Pajc̄üɦoqa had been terribly underdeveloped by then, having been a, like, early industrial society at the time the wakali showed up, and horribly exploited over the generation since. Part of the deal of joining Inapu-Itarisan was getting huge investments in all kinds of shite — the Pajc̄üɦoqa had been caught up enough that they'd actually been in a position to contribute to the war effort when the jusannu showed up. That was what the scabs were called in Minnisiät, apparently they'd gone on a massive invasion of...well, practically everyone, by the sound of it. Inapu-Itarisan had faired relatively well, all things considered — had even expanded over the course of the war, various neighbouring peoples they came to the aid of joining up — but, from the explanatory videos they put up to try to give them some very basics about the galaxy, Beth got the feeling that other big galactic civilisations had been much, much less fortunate.
(Unless Beth was seriously misunderstanding something, the graphics they were shown suggested that they thought a tenth to a quarter of the entire fucking galaxy had died due to the war — more from famine and disease and the indirect effects of the scabs' terraforming shite than the violence itself — which was fucking absurd. She couldn't even imagine how many people that was.)
Anyway, the Pajc̄üɦoqa were still a relatively young society, by galactic standards, a lot of the habitable worlds in their country still minimally settled. The planet they'd be hosted on — called Uq̄aru-ɬöjp̄ija in their language — was thinly inhabited by a smattering of people farming and raising livestock. There was industry in the system, but it was kept off of the planet itself (to avoid poisoning the environment with pollutants, Beth assumed), factories and shite in orbit, supplied by mining operations scattered across the uninhabitable planets in the system and asteroids and shite. They were shown videos of, like, little robots crawling over asteroids, big space stations being pieced together bit by bit, what were obviously assembly lines for something inside, very neat.
They'd be hosted in one of the very few cities on the planet, at what Beth was pretty sure was an international university? Like, part of a system run by Inapu-Itarisan, she meant. The language barrier continued to make interpreting technical details pretty much impossible, but she thought it was something like that.
They weren't really told that much about the Pajc̄üɦoqa during the trip. Just that basic stuff about their history, some shots of their architecture and their fashion and the like, some extremely basic etiquette stuff (they didn't do handshakes), and that was really it. Beth assumed they'd learn more about them while they were on the planet.
After the lessons and shite in the afternoon was dinner, which was bigger and more involved than breakfast, with the omniglots and all the staff working with them eating at the tables together. Beth was honestly a little impressed that Thisaku and his handful of staff could feed so many people seemingly without even working at it too hard, but she guessed there might be some labour-saving stuff going on? These were fucking space-faring aliens, didn't see why not. She thought Thisaku might be kind of spoiling them by actually making good shite, and not just relying on something like the rations they'd seen already, but she assumed Inapu-Itarisan would prefer to make a good impression on new people, and feeding them well was a decent way to do that.
The food categories were more or less identifiable, even if the dishes themselves weren't. She meant, like, there were things that were identifiable as meats, or grains, or fruits or vegetables. Though, it was honestly really hard to tell sometimes whether something was supposed to be a fruit or a vegetable, but she guessed that wasn't really new — even on Earth, things like tomatoes were pretty ambiguous. Beth was getting the feeling that nuts and grains weren't entirely different things to them either, the bread (recognisable as bread) and, like, the pasta or porridge or whatever was very...hearty? Made Beth think of, like, nut paste or butter or something, though obviously not sweetened like that, and also the nut-like flavour wasn't identifiable as a particular kind of nut, just, what it reminded her of. One common Earth thing that she didn't notice at all was cheese, not even with breakfast or their lunch snacks. There were a few creamy sauces, but she didn't even think those were made with dairy? She suspected that was one thing the Sija just didn't have, for whatever reason.
It was also super spicy — Thisaku was feeding them mostly Sija food, and apparently that was normal for them. The explanation wasn't super clear, but Beth understood that Sija food was actually really popular in Inapu-Itarisan, but she guessed that made sense? They were the largest member state (both geographically and numerically), and were disproportionately represented in the big collective organisations even relative to their large population (thanks to their general enthusiasm for the project), so, it was only natural that they might have a major influence on the shared, international culture. It seemed that Sija liked their food to be sweet and spicy at the same time, a lot of the sauces in their meals obviously had some kind of syrup in them — with a vaguely fruity-floral tang to it, didn't know what that was — but didn't come off as a dessert thing, since they were also super spicy, earthy and intense. Some of it sort of reminded her of, like, cumin, or chilli powder, or black pepper, or coriander, or basil — she'd put them in something like those classes of spices, the flavour profile was similar, but they definitely weren't the same thing.
And there was something that had a similar heat to chilli peppers, but wasn't chilli peppers. The burn felt slightly different to begin with (though Beth couldn't put words to exactly how), but also it didn't come from a vegetable at all — she thought it was some kind of nut? They would be in dishes, yes, but one of the things they might have at the table as an after-dinner snack, while they lingered around talking over drinks, was these nuts, fried and stuck with crystals of sugar and salt, and whoo, those things had a hard fucking burn, Sija were fucking masochists...
The food was good, yes, very rich and hearty and intensely flavourful, but the spices and the heat could be a little overwhelming at times. If she hadn't gotten accustomed to more varied food, during the war and over the years since, she suspected it'd be too spicy for her to comfortably eat — it was less than entirely compatible with the English palate, to put it mildly.
Also? It turned out aliens drank alcohol — Beth and a couple of the others were taken a little by surprise when they started getting tipsy from certain drinks at dinner, but it was definitely just alcohol, so. (Besides, there were medical staff around, so even if Thisaku accidentally poisoned them they'd probably be fine.) Some of it was comparable to wine, though she seriously doubted it was made with grapes. The same thing that syrup was made out of, maybe? It did have a vaguely flowery smell to it that was somewhat similar. Another common thing was this stuff that was, like...kind of like a spiced cider or mead, she guessed? or maybe like beer, but spiced more like cider? was that a thing on Earth? She suspected it was made out of the same nut-like thing that went into their bread and shite, the spices reminding her of, like...dark chocolate and cloves? and maybe sage? Hard to put her finger on, exactly, but that was probably because her brain was trying to label the flavours with things from Earth that didn't quite fit right. It wasn't bad, but she thought she preferred the wine.
All in all, the trip only took, like, a few days? It was a little hard to say for sure, with her sense of time all fucked up, but the routine they had on the ship meant she could count day-night cycles, at least — she thought it was only their third full day on the ship when they reached Uq̄aru-ɬöjp̄ija. Which, travel taking two or three days kind of felt like a long time to her, since she was used to magical transportation, but when she thought about it that was stupid fast. They must have gone, what, hundreds of light-years? That felt to her like it should be fucking impossible, when she actually sat down and thought about it, and Beth was literally magic.
They'd dropped out of their faster-than-light thing some time ago, the dome showing endless star-speckled blackness, when they were told to pack up and get going — wIth a pre-prepared video to help get the point across, as happened often. By the time they were all back out into the common room, a huge space station of some kind was coming into view through the dome. It was shaped like a big ring, within the bounds of the thick, actually livable-looking body was a branching network of narrower walkways, space ships of various sizes and shapes and colours docked here and there like leaves on branches. Beth noticed windows on the ring, glowing like the stars all around, but also arrays of tiny round holes she took to be the barrels of some kind of weapon. Doubled as a defence station, maybe? It couldn't be solely a defence station, since she assumed the windows would be a weakness (and the ring design probably wasn't very sturdy either), but she wasn't sure what else it was for...maybe customs and shite?
They didn't have very long to look up at the station, though, pretty soon they were being shuffled back to the elevator, a quick ride down and a short walk along a hallway bringing them back to what Beth assumed was the same landing bay with the same shuttle as before. Though the shuttle was rather more full this time — there was their team of nine, yes, and the pilot and Shár-ÿḳl-korlåe and Quńalhi and Chaf-aṛ-nissåltý, but they were also joined by Thisaku, Eqathi, and Aq̄hija, along with their subordinates. They didn't come with luggage, presumably they'd gotten all set up at their destination before coming by Earth to pick them up. Having this many more people wasn't a problem for safety reasons, she assumed — with the number of chairs in here, they were still only at about half capacity — it just felt a whole lot more crowded this time.
After setting her bag down on a chair, Beth moved to stand by one of the sides. They got underway quickly, the shuttle gently lifting off of the floor of the landing bay, the blank white walls slowly sliding by — until the external wall swept over the shuttle, a band down the middle glowing an intense blueish-red (emitting whatever barrier kept the air inside the landing bay), revealing countless speckles of colourful stars against the hard black backdrop of space.
Beth hadn't gotten tired of looking at that yet. By the way the rest of their team were all standing at the windows, Ḑiguqhȧnna literally pressing her nose against the transparent material, she wasn't the only one.
The stars spun around for a dizzying moment as the shuttle rotated — it was still disorienting, seeing that they were moving but not being able to feel it at all. While they were turning, Beth was pretty sure she spotted a large greenish-blueish round blob in the distance, presumably Uq̄aru-ɬöjp̄ija, but before she could get a good look it was hidden by the nose of the shuttle again. She was a little surprised that they were launching from the big ship so far out? The blob had seemed larger than the Earth from the moon, but only by, like, two or three times, they must still be over a hundred thousand kilometres out. They'd all assumed that Inapu-Itarisan hadn't been bringing their big ships any closer than the moon to avoid being too intimidating to the poor primitive planet-bound Earthlings, but maybe that was just standard procedure? Like, ships above a certain size were normally only supposed to approach so close to inhabited planets, for safety reasons or something? Beth guessed that would make rational sense — and the station being out here for people to dock at did seem to suggest this is where the line would be, if there was one — but it was too complicated of a question to ask.
They drifted away from the big ship for a minute or so, before the floor lurched under Beth's feet, the harsh vibration of the engines settling in. The stars outside her side of the shuttle were mostly unchanging — as far as they were away, the speed they were moving was totally negligible, and apparently their burn was being done in a perfectly straight line. After accelerating for a couple minutes, the engine noise cut out again, the inside of the shuttle silent save for the low murmur of conversation, a shoe occasionally scraping against the floor.
The shuttle coasted along for a couple minutes at what Beth was certain was an absurd speed, before flipping end over end, the stars outside her window whirling. She noticed a few shapes out there, some dark and others reflecting a glare of sunlight, depending on the angle she was viewing them at, some of them showing a bright blue-white glow at one end — other space ships, she guessed, approaching or leaving the planet. There was a warning from Quńalhi, there'd be another burn in a second, Beth quick translated it into French before turning to look back outside.
The engines kicked back on again — like their original approach to the ship, they quickly ramped up to a hard burn, and then gradually tapered off, their pilot aiming to bring them down to a particular speed. The engines switched off again, but there still wasn't much to see, stars and an occasional other ship here or there. But then Beth twitched, leaned closer against the window, trying to look up. There was some kind of structure 'above' them, a space station formed of a few boxes stuck together. The profile looked irregular, partly because Beth guessed it'd been added on to a couple times, more boxes stuck onto the frame wherever it was convenient, but also it...looked like there were asteroids fixed onto it? Craggy blobs of dark rock, held in place with big claws, the surface of one crawling with tiny little machines she couldn't quite make out from here, an occasional flash of light as they burned into it...
They must have tugged ore-rich asteroids into orbit, where the resources within them could be efficiently stripped and shuttled over to wherever they were needed. Beth hadn't realised, from the videos of this stuff they'd been shown on the way over, that they'd be so close to the planet — as she watched, a glowing blue arc of atmosphere appeared at the edge of her view, swiftly growing, this station only in a high orbit. The images they'd been shown of Uq̄aru-ɬöjp̄ija from space must have had this station edited out...or simply predated them — stations plural, as the planet 'rose over' the top of her window Beth saw there were actually several, arranged in a widely-spaced ring — supposedly the settlement of this planet was relatively recent...
The planet was very large in Beth's window now, filling most of her view — they were flying parallel to the edge of daylight, the shuttle aimed toward one of the poles, a narrow band of twilight overhead, the sun above the horizon directly ahead. She looked straight at the sun without thinking, but it didn't bother her eyes at all. After thinking about it a second, she decided whatever the hell this material was must block off too-bright light, so people didn't damage their eyes looking at space shite. Seemed like that'd be absolutely necessary in the cockpit, at least.
Beth could make out a continent up there, though obviously the shape was completely unfamiliar, the planet looking alien not just in the shapes but in the colours as well, the sea tinged greenish, the land muddy greys and browns, patches of red or blue-violet, no greenery visible anywhere. She didn't have very long to look, though, Beth had hardly started examining the tiny, craggy shapes of what looked like a mountain range when there was a faint clunk — glancing around, panels were sliding down over the transparent sides, one locking into place to let the next reach past it, ratcheted down with little clicks and whirrs Beth could feel through the sides of the shuttle. The whole process took maybe fifteen, twenty seconds, the view of space quickly hidden with plain, featureless white walls, the seams in the panels almost completely invisible.
Standing toward the front of the shuttle, Shár-ÿḳl-korlåe warned them that the ride was going to get a little bumpy. Beth relayed the warning, but only some of them bothered getting down into seats — she hadn't missed that some of their hosts were still standing, carelessly chatting on about...whatever. (Not all of the conversation was even in Minnisiät, some of the staff spoke the Sija language among themselves.) She did lean a little against the wall, just in case, but she assumed it'd be fine.
There was a lurch and a shuddering from another burn of the engines — from the angle they'd been coasting over the planet when Beth could still see, she assumed this one was angling them down to enter the atmosphere. The engines cut off before too long, they coasted in silence for a moment before she started to feel a subtle buzzing against her hand. Over the next minute or two, the buzzing grew stronger and stronger, building to a harsh vibration she could feel all through her body, her teeth nearly chattering, the interior of the ship seeming to rattle around, Beth jumped at a sudden loud clank, little popping noises. None of the aliens seemed concerned, though, still casually chatting, so she forced herself to breathe slow and calm — this must be normal reentry stuff, it's fine, don't worry about it...
Thankfully, the worst of the rattling passed quickly, soon tapering off back down to a subtle, almost imperceptible shivering. The air in the shuttle felt funny, almost seeming to ring just below hearing, the faintest whistle — wind, she thought, they weren't in space anymore. After a minute or two of flying — or maybe technically falling, since the engines were still silent — Beth twitched at a clunk and a whirring, coming from very nearby, as the external panels loosened again, a seam appeared glowing with sunlight. The panels retracted, the sides of the shuttle spreading open, revealing the sky beyond.
Fuck, Beth loved flying. They were still high up in the sky, a pure pleasant blue above and a scattering of puffy bright white clouds below. Tiny in the distance past the clouds were craggy mountains and rolling hills, rounded patches in red and purple that she realised from the pictures they'd been shown must be vegetation. Beth stared wide-eyed down at the alien landscape, streaked with shadows from clouds and mountains, rocky hills and curling rivers, she thought she spotted a village here or there — but then the shuttle was abruptly thrown into shadow, a couple seconds later her view blotted out by thick clouds, only inches in front of her face.
...Rather dark clouds, actually, a murky deep grey, the floor under her feet seeming to twitch and shudder now and then, the whistle of wind surging and fluttering. And then there was a flash of light, vague and indistinct through the grey, and then another, another. Were they flying through a thunderstorm?
A short time flying through blank greyness, occasionally brightening with another flash of light, and then they plunged below the cloud layer — and Beth saw that, yes, they were flying through a storm. The clouds thick enough to block the sun, the landscape cast into a false twilight, rain slashing down through the air, an occasional gust of wind splattering drops of water against the side of the shuttle, their speed making it run off in rivulets up and to the side across the transparent wall, lightning jumping back and forth between the clouds overhead, occasionally stabbing down at the ground below...
The ferocity of the storm outside the shuttle tapered off, the rain thinning and the whistling of wind going quiet, and then they were bursting into sunlight again, sudden enough Beth had to blink the spots out of her eyes. They flew over a body of greenish-blue water textured with narrow lines of white-topped waves — it took them a couple minutes to cross it, a large lake or narrow sea — reaching the rocky shore on the other side, tall cliffs the width of a finger from this height. Soon mountains were rising below them, some in rolling curves and others with jagged eroded spikes, bare greyish or brownish stone, the tops of some covered in snow, shining brilliantly white in the sun...
There was a subtle shudder through the ship, a tingle of magic on the air. Their anti-gravity stuff, she thought, the mountains out the window swaying a little as the pilot adjusted their course — they must be nearing their destination. Their speed dropping further, the mountains below not whipping by the window nearly so fast, coming close enough under them that Beth could make out boulders or fissures here and there on their surface, grainy rivers of pebbles, reddish patches of vegetation resolving enough she could make out...trees? Were those trees? They certainly looked like trees, short and sprawling wide, branches supporting red bunches of something.
The shuttle dropped lower, the tops of the mountains level with Beth's eyeline, and then well over her head, her view filled with the valley walls, rocky hills partially hidden with alien vegetation. Beth spotted a house, whipping past the window close enough it was about the size of her palm — a narrow cylinder perched atop a hill, stone and colourfully-dyed glass, shining where it caught the sun, a long banner hung from a balcony fluttering in the wind. They were following a river, mostly hidden by the floor under Beth's feet but occasionally peeking into view, winding through one valley to the next. More houses sprouted out of the hills here and there, most of them surrounded with crops arranged in unnaturally even rows and concentric rings, a couple times they passed over small villages hugged close to the water, Beth spotted what she was pretty sure was a flying car, skimming along hugged close to the ground, along a track through cultivated rows of red and purple trees, an alien orchard...
They flew through a narrow mountain pass, stone walls close against the sides of the shuttle — after a minute the mountains dropped away again, and the city spread out in front of her. Wide and open, round towers of dyed glass sparkling in the sunlight, more long banners hanging from balconies here and there — Beth assumed there must be some cultural thing going on there — buildings interspersed with gardens and the rings of individual neighbourhoods divided by orchards and what looked like crops of some kind, everything light and airy and colourful. They were flying low enough, the pilot weaving between towers, that Beth could spot figures walking along the paths or in the windows, a small crowd gathered in a courtyard, a few flying cars skimming along...
It was interesting how many growing things there were around. Impossibly advanced space-faring civilisation, she'd expected, you know, like in major muggle cities, but worse? Maybe this was just how the Pajc̄üɦoqa in particular chose to build things, she didn't know. Though, there were cities on Earth that grew a lot of shite inside them now, looking way more green than they used to, but that was due to people growing as much food as possible wherever they could during the bad famine years, and they cheated with magic to get it to work — this was a different thing, what looked like crop fields interspersed with urban areas. Beth thought it was pretty neat, just, not what she'd expected.
After a short flight across the city, the shuttle dipped close to the ground. They took a short loop around the university grounds, tilted to give them a good look — though Beth was on the wrong side of the shuttle, she needed to tip up onto her toes and look over people's shoulders to see much of anything at all. A mix of the round glassy buildings she assumed were a feature of native Pajc̄üɦoqa architecture and blockier buildings that must have been built by Inapu-Itarisan, as part of their contribution to the university here. The shuttle levelling off again, they turned more into the university, slowing to a crawl and drifting low to the ground. Beth couldn't see much out of her side of the shuttle at all, blocked by funny black-sided and red-leafed trees, the edge of a brick building visible above and past them...
The shuttle set down, silently and with no sense of motion, the only giveaways how the scene out the window bobbed down and up and the tingly buzz of their antigravity shite cutting off. There was a little bit of activity in the shuttle, the staff standing up and talking and moving around, people going for their bags and—
It abruptly occurred to Beth that she'd just landed on an alien planet.
Just, fuck, this whole trip was wild when she actually took a second to think about it, was all.
There was a hiss as the hatch opened, the faint breeze slipping through very obvious in the previously static environment of the shuttle. It was a little cool, crisp, like a clear autumn day, some tang on the air she couldn't quite identify...
After a short moment — waiting for the ramp to go down, she thought — people started to stream out of the shuttle. Beth joined the queue, quickly nearing the front of the shuttle, her heart climbing up her throat...
She stepped through the door, her step hitching for a blink at the top of the ramp. They were in what was clearly meant to be a small private landing field, the shuttle settled on a circle of what looked like brownish concrete, surrounded by a strip of off-coloured brush. Beyond the brush was a line of trees that way, one of the glassy towers sticking up over the canopy, straight ahead was a paved road, shaded by trees leaning over both sides, she could make out an oversized doorway leading into one of the odd, plastic-sided buildings — storage for supplies coming in through the airfield? There were narrower paths curling off through the brush and away, hard to tell where they were going from here. The air was cool and dry, wavering with a gentle, inconsistent breeze, flavoured with what Beth assumed was local plant life, tangy and faintly sweet.
Beth forced herself to keep moving after a blink, walking on somewhat shaky knees down the ramp and onto the concrete. They milled around for a bit, waiting for everyone to get off the shuttle, but they got moving very quickly, Shár-ÿḳl-korlåe leading the way along one of the paths, in the direction of the glass tower peeking over the trees to the left. The path was narrow enough that their group had to walk three people wide, snaking their way along.
While they were passing through the line of bushes, she noticed Brân reach out and puck off one of the leaves, turning it in his fingers — and yeah, it was curious how...recognisably plant-like they were. They basically just looked like bushes? Low, scraggly, rough-looking ones, but undoubtedly bushes. The wood was an oddly dark colour, almost black, and the leaves were red, wide and round, seemingly too large for their internal structure to support, looking oddly droopy. They were definitely leaves, though, which... was that odd? It seemed odd to Beth that they were so recognisable, but maybe there was a reason for that — she didn't know nearly enough about biology or evolution or whatever to say. But then, the aliens they'd seen so far had a pretty similar body shapes, so maybe shite was just like that for some reason.
After a short walk through the line of trees — their trunks similarly dark, bunches of flimsier non-woody plants filling the spaces between, red or a lighter purplish colour, some blooming with flowers in unfamiliar shapes, green and yellow and blue — they reached the area around the glass tower. Most of the cleared area was covered in some kind of orangish-yellow grass, speckled here and there with what must be wildflowers in green and violet, stitched through with curving paths. There were benches set up in several places, some with canopies built over them to shade from the sun. Curiously, the bottom floor of the tower seemed to be open, sturdy pillars supporting the higher levels but some of the walls between completely missing, revealing what was clearly a public sitting area of some kind inside, a counter that looked like it might be meant for food service.
And there were people around — Pajc̄üɦoqa, mostly, the funny bird-like people decorated with a variety of embroidered sashes and strings of beads fixed to them somehow. (Aq̄hija and the Pajc̄üɦoqa on her staff were wearing trousers and tunics similar to the other staff people, if cut somewhat differently to accommodate their body shape, but their people had their own distinct styles of dress.) There was a smattering of other species, a couple monatšeri but most of them completely unfamiliar. Maybe Beth had caught glimpses of some of them in one or another of the videos they'd been shown, but some of them she thought were entirely new, because it turned out there were a lot of fucking aliens out here. The path they were on, leading right into the tower, had been kept clear, a small crowd gathered seemingly just to watch the new people arrive.
(Beth would later learn that, despite their hosts' best efforts, rumours had started to get out that a 'primitive' planet had managed to hold off an invasion by the scabs all by themselves — people were curious already.)
On the way to the tower, Beth stepped off of the path onto the grass. She bit her lip to keep in a giddy giggle, excited tingles crawling over her skin — she was literally standing on alien soil on an alien planet right now. She bent over to pluck up some of the grass, only slowing down a step. It wasn't quite the same as grass on Earth: there was a short stem, for one thing, dark and thin and delicate, rising from the top of each stem three long thin blades of yellowish leaves. It didn't smell like grass either, tangy and vaguely sour...
Distracted, she belatedly noticed there was actually a few people standing outside the base of the tower to meet them, Beth dropped the grass and skipped up toward the front of the group. (She was technically supposed to be the leader of their team, and was the only one who could get out even basic sentences in Minnisiät.) The people meeting them were actually in the military uniform Inapu-Itarisan used, trousers and jacket in black and red — security, maybe? It didn't seem likely that they had to worry about people making trouble for them, but Beth guessed it was better for their hosts to take the precaution than not.
Also? The man standing in the middle and a step ahead of the rest, obviously in command of the team, was human. That there were apparently already humans in space hadn't stopped being baffling.
As they approached, the man in the lead dipped his head in a little bow, one fist clapping over his chest, and... He was greeting them, Beth was sure — she thought a name and rank had been in there but she hadn't quite followed it. She lurched to a stop a short distance away, Shár-ÿḳl-korlåe and Quńalhi nearby and the rest of her team and the staff coming up behind them. "Inu na, Corporal Elizabeth Potter ismisa ham."
The man twitched with surprise a little, blinked at her for a second. He said something about her speaking Minnisiät already.
"Little bit," Beth said, holding up a thumb and a finger close together — she wasn't actually sure that use of little was correct? It might be just for sizes of things, and didn't make sense talking about degrees, so.
Some introductions went around quick — this bloke was called Kella Norvys, and he was in charge of their security — before they continued on. The big atrium/cafeteria on the bottom floor was very colourful, mosaics on the floor and stained-glass fixtures hanging from the ceiling and displays and posters on the walls, but they didn't stay to look around, Shár-ÿḳl-korlåe and Kella leading them up a wide set of stairs. (The surface wasn't solid, the steps made out of some kind of ceramic or the like formed into a net with tiny holes through it, held up by a skeletal metal frame, but Beth assumed the builders knew what they were doing.) Shár-ÿḳl-korlåe was babbling at her as they climbed, um, this was one of the university dormitories, she was pretty sure? He was saying something about the uses of the top floor, but she didn't quite follow it — if she had to guess, there was housing for special guests and shite way up there, so they probably hadn't kicked anyone out, then.
The stairs led up into what was obviously a common room of some kind, sofas and chairs and what looked like bloody hammocks around. This space was in the middle of the tower, the dorm rooms in a ring around it, so there weren't any windows, light provided by the stained glass light fixtures overhead, throwing out chinks of colour at random. There were people watching them here, still keeping politely back — Beth was trying not to find the staring a little creepy. (Pajc̄üɦoqa didn't seem to need to blink the same way as humans.) They got onto a narrower staircase, only room enough for two people side-by-side, and continued up into another common room, and another, and another...
Beth hadn't bothered counting the floors at the beginning, so she didn't know how many they went past, but eventually they reached one that ended at a closed door fitted horizontally into the ceiling. Kella turned to show Beth a little metallic band around his left wrist, held it up to the door — there was a soft pleasant beep and a little click, and the door slid open. Their common room would be private, apparently.
The common room didn't look much different from the ones Beth had seen on the way up, furniture and tables scattered around, the light tinted with various colours, the floor covered with some kind of mosaic, posters and displays on the walls — the displays were switched on, but currently showing the same default Inapu-Itarisan insignia on a blue background the big display on the ship put up when they weren't showing anything. It wasn't quite the same, the furniture in more familiar, human-friendly shapes, and some of the tables had rows of equipment and supplies set up (presumably for their use). Also, the primary source of light was the sun — the ceiling was glass, triangular panels fitted together at switchbacking angles to form a sort of jagged dome, refracting and reflecting, the entire surface seeming to glow.
After giving them a moment to look around, Shár-ÿḳl-korlåe suggested they pick rooms and put their things down. There were enough staff on hand for all of them to have their own person to show them around — Beth got Quńalhi. A quick eyeballing, it looked like there were more doors than people, but the rooms themselves were also obviously meant to sleep at least two each. (Not really a surprise, their guests did seem to have expected more than only nine.) The door she picked opened into a small, narrow sitting room, with a couple reading chairs by the window and what were obviously workstations of some kind, display boxes that she assumed were computers and enough flat space to write. There was a door leading into a slightly cramped bathroom with a toilet and shower, and two more that led into bedrooms.
These were nice enough, she guessed. Soft, dark colours, a sizeable bed — recognisable, the right shape with pillows and sheets and shite — a couple chairs and drawers, a closet with more space than she'd actually need. It was way more bright than she assumed it would be at night, and maybe felt larger and more open than it actually was — the outside wall and the ceiling were almost entirely made out of glass, more triangular panels dyed a rainbow of colours, like out in the common room. It was sort of neat that the outside wall had a door leading out onto the balcony, overlooking the campus and along the edge of the city, the mountains rising overhead only a short distance that way, but Beth was a little worried she might feel, well, exposed. (Especially since people here did have flying cars.) There were shades that could be drawn over the glass for privacy, controlled by a pair of control panels by the door and right next to the bed, Quńalhi showed her how they worked, right, this would do, then. One of the bedrooms was slightly bigger, the other with a bite cut out from it to fit the bathroom, so she dropped her bag on the bed in the bigger one (not that she really needed the extra space anyway), turned back to the common room with Quńalhi following along behind her.
They had to wait a little while for everyone to get back to the common room — a few of them had started getting properly settled in, unpacking their things and the like, seemingly not realising that everyone else was waiting for them. Once they were back, Kella handed them all silvery metal wristbands, which would act as their keys to get in the door. It sounded like they weren't seriously concerned about security, but they took precautions as a courtesy regardless, things like locking their dorms and posting a couple guards at the building full-time. (Kella didn't mention it, but Beth would later learn that they'd imposed a no-fly zone over the university too, it would come up after an incident involving a journalist or something trying to sneak footage of the odd magic humans.) Nāgamaṇi wondered aloud if these things would even work for them, since magic tended to mess with technology — the aliens' technology did seem to be more resistant to magic, but maybe that was special shielding they didn't use on everything? — so they quick tested casting spells directly on the bracelets and checking if they'd still open the door afterward, and it looked like they'd be fine.
All nine of them could apparate anyway, so they could get in and out regardless of whether the keys were working, but it was still worth checking.
Sitting on one of the tables was a row of nine bags, one for each of them — once they were done testing the bracelets, Aq̄hija waved them over, started going through the contents of one of the bags. In a small side pocket was a little handheld device, maybe the size of a crystal phone. These actually were mobile phones, apparently, Aq̄hija poked around for a little bit, showing them how they worked. They'd already preloaded the addresses (or whatever the proper term was) of various people on staff — of course they couldn't read the text yet, but they'd also conveniently included pictures of everyone with their information. Beth didn't recognise some of the faces, presumably people they hadn't met yet.
All of the phones had a design drawn on the back of them, which Beth thought might be a numeral? Remembering which person had the phone with which unfamiliar design on it would obviously be a pain, so the staff people helped them replace those entries with something that actually made sense to them. There were cameras built into these things, apparently, but navigating the menus and shite was too complicated for people who couldn't read yet — thankfully, sometimes you had to deal with people who used different scripts, so there was an option to scribble right on the display instead of typing out text. Beth wasn't entirely sure how to spell everyone's names, but that was fine, it was just for her use anyway. One of Aq̄hija's assistants went around, checking who had which phone and asking their names, tapping away at one of those computer tablet things they had, presumably so all the staff would be able to call the correct person if they needed to.
They went through the rest of the supplies in the bags — a sturdy drink bottle (maybe aluminium?), what looked like snack packages, some study materials, one of those computer tablets of theirs. Beth was a little surprised to see that these hyper-advanced aliens still used things that were recognisably pens, and these were definitely notebooks...though, she suspected the pages weren't actually paper. She couldn't say what they were exactly, just, they didn't feel like paper, the texture too smooth, and they didn't fold as easily or crinkle at all. Some kind of plastic fibre, maybe? The computers were preloaded with what Beth assumed were educational and informational programmes, but the text was still completely illegible, so these weren't really going to be of any use to them until later.
There was a little bit more talk from Kella, using one of the displays on the walls to show more of their pre-prepared videos. Mostly, how to call for help if they were lost, or in trouble. Beth couldn't imagine any of that was going to be a problem — she was pretty sure their hosts still had absolutely no idea how dangerous all of them (with the possible exception of Brân) were to non-mages, anyone trying to mess with them would be fucked — but she let him get through his instructions without interrupting. There was then a little bit from Aq̄hija, about how to go about asking the staff if they needed anything. Apparently there were programmes on their tablets and the displays in here where they could select drawings and shite from a list so they could get across what they needed despite not being able to speak the language, which was good thinking. It was obvious Inapu-Itarisan had done this shite before, had a whole process.
They were about wrapping up that talk when Thisaku's people — Beth somehow hadn't even noticed they weren't here, must have vanished on the way up the stairs — showed up with one of those light lunches people here seemed to prefer. She thought it was somewhat late for lunch time, but she guessed it wasn't a big surprise if all the shite they had to get to today threw their schedule off somewhat.
As small as the midday meal tended to be for these people, it wasn't very long before they were moving on again already — Shár-ÿḳl-korlåe had them pick up the bags they'd been given, and led them back down the stairs. The crowd of onlookers that had been around before had melted away, though there were still people around, sitting reading or chatting in the common rooms, gathered over drinks in the cafeteria. (The normal business for this time of day, she assumed.) Thisaku and Aq̄hija and their staff melted away by the time their group were stepping outside again, the security people staying behind, only Kella himself sticking with them — apparently all the extra people weren't needed, wherever they were going. Walking out of the tower, they turned onto one of the curving paths through the grass, leading into a row of trees...
This was the same direction they'd come, Beth was pretty sure. Yes, it definitely was, on the other side of the trees was the same little landing pad they'd arrived at — the shuttle was gone, presumably already returned to the big ship, but she recognised it regardless. Shár-ÿḳl-korlåe led them across the clearing, and onto another path through another line of trees on the opposite side. A minute of walking later they stepped back out into sunlight, a clearing around the brick building she'd spotted past the trees when they'd arrived. Though, if she had to guess, it looked like this was actually the heart of the campus: their path ended at a little oval-shaped courtyard, flowering plants sprouting out of planters (some with green leaves, imported?) and benches, but beyond that the trees didn't come back around to encircle them, a wide path leading off to a larger courtyard, little gazebos or something and what looked looked like food carts, a big damn water fountain at the centre, and arranged around the fountain were more buildings, some made out of the glass the Pajc̄üɦoqa seemed to prefer and others in brick or glossy almost plastic-looking siding, dozens and dozens of people milling around or sitting chatting...
They didn't go that way, though, Shár-ÿḳl-korlåe turning toward the right to enter the brick building. The doors opened into a double-height atrium, one wall all glass — clear, and in rectangular panels, not the local style — some rows of seats, a counter to one side with some clerks or some shite. Pinned up on the walls were a couple oversized panels, one the ring of stairs and open hand of Inapu-Itarisan, one a curly colourful design she was mostly certain represented the Pajc̄üɦoqa government. Belatedly, walking across the room, she noticed that the largest open space in the middle of the floor had a sunburst design worked into the tile, that script the aliens mostly used in a ring around it — Shár-ÿḳl-korlåe pointed down as they walked over it, said it was for, er...some kind of ministry of education or something, maybe? She wasn't sure.
In the atrium was a wide, curling staircase leading up to the first floor, Shár-ÿḳl-korlåe led the way up, along the hallway looking down on the atrium. There were vines growing out of the floor to crawl up the bars of the handrail blocking off the fall, the leaves of which were a funny pale blueish, almost lavender colour, the flowers deep purple and white, here and there little blue berries hanging on the vines — those were interesting, what the hell? There were displays along the wall, showing videos from one place or another, cityscapes and landscapes. Beth assumed they were glimpses from Inapu-Itarisan member worlds.
Shár-ÿḳl-korlåe pointed at one as they passed — the camera was inside of what seemed to be a greenhouse, rows of crops in funny blue and violet tones (like the vines just here), beyond the transparent wall and ceiling a harsh icy arctic wasteland, curling bands of snow whipped along by the wind skittering over ice and exposed stone, a couple kilometres into the distance down the shallow valley an absurdly tall wall of craggy ice, sparkling deep blue in the sunlight, the edge of a glacier? That was on Csílla, apparently, the homeworld of the Chiss. Not sure what that was doing here, Beth was very certain from their talks earlier that the Chiss government wasn't a member of Inapu-Itarisan, but she guessed the Chiss people here would still have some attachment to their homeworld, so, whatever.
They took a right turn onto a hallway leading deeper into the building, the walls now mostly plain plaster, posters or signs hung up on the walls every so often. Some of the doors were open, Beth peeked inside to see what were obviously classrooms, a couple in a row way at the back of a huge lecture hall, the doors down by the front probably even opened into the first floor. They came to a junction of hallways, opening up a little around a staircase at the centre — a few people, Pajc̄üɦoqa and one monatšeri, were standing around talking, paused to give their group curious looks as they went past. They climbed up the stairs, the flights taking right-angles to loop back in on itself, up one floor, another...
On the top floor, they zigzagged through a few hallways, until Shár-ÿḳl-korlåe led them through a wide-open set of double doors into what Beth assumed was their destination. She thought it might ordinarily be a staff or student lounge of some kind? A long bank of windows overlooking the courtyard below, there were clumps of sofas and chairs arranged in cosy conversational circles, what might be a small kitchen area tucked away to one side. One corner had a long L-shaped table hugging it, multiple computer stations all down the length, doors to both sides into, what, toilets or additional rooms or whatever, who knows.
Waiting for them in here were half a dozen people, a mix of monatšeri — kharson like Quńalhi and zotšuńalh like Thisaku — a single human, and a roughly humanoid man with skin a vivid greenish-blue and a pair of long, thick, fleshy tendrils extending from the back of his head and drooping over his shoulders, complicated geometric designs tattooed over the surface. (Those things were weird-looking, but the tattoos were neat.) This would be their teaching staff for however long learning the language was going to take. Introductions went around, the six of them very quickly getting all their names right, even the more difficult to pronounce ones like Ch'uk'aq and Ḑiguqhȧnna — Beth guessed these were likely to be language experts, so.
Once introductions had gone around, Soqhuńe (a kharson man, in charge of their language lessons), led them through a door to the right into another room. This looked very much like a normal conference room, dominated by a long flattened oval -shaped table ringed with chairs. The omniglots were waved down to seats, once everyone was settled Soqhuńe fiddled with a computer tablet thing. A device fitted into the centre of the table unfolded, seeming to iris open — there was a brief flicker of light, and then an illusion appeared over the table. Or hologram, whatever, it looked like an illusion. An array of unfamiliar curling glyphs set in even rows and columns, glowing a clear red, set against a translucent greenish background for contrast.
Wait, no, not unfamiliar: that was the same script Beth kept seeing everywhere, the primary writing system Inapu-Itarisan seemed to use.
Soqhuńe stepped closer to the table, reached up to point at the symbol at the top-right of the grid (from Beth's perspective). "Ah." For a second, Beth just stared at him — she was tipped off by a couple others in their group reaching into the bags they'd been given, Beth scrambling to retrieve her own funny alien notebook.
And so, during their first afternoon on an alien planet, Beth and the other omniglots were taught to read.
Language lessons, how fun! :D
Seven scenes total left in this fic. I'll be jumping back to The Good War for a couple scenes before coming back to check in on Beth's progress, and also what Hermione's up to.