remote station

[synchrosyntheses]

Teytis tel Jobont is not living up to her lantelis.

She had been en route to her usual position after a rest-and-resupply period. Instead of the expected uneventful trip, somehow she loses her anchors, falls through a bizarrely shaped storm, then finds herself impossibly over land instead of water and with her upper antennas chopped off like they were never there.

She was able to stabilize with only minor damage to the uninhabited land, but she cannot hear a single intelligible signal, and a hundred other things add up to this is no place anyone has ever seen before. Or rather, reported seeing before.

So here she sits in the sky, relaying nothing, thinking about everything.

Comments

[calescent]

Well, if she doesn't want her vocabulary filled in -

"I'll be upstairs. Dinner will be in two hours, and you can have some if you want."

[synchrosyntheses]

Slightly frozen for a moment.

“I — have my own supplies of food, but — if you do not mind, if dinner is a suitable occasion, I would learn by listening as well as by reading.”

[calescent]

"I don't mind. But you might not hear very much. My brothers usually sit near me and don't talk aloud very much."

[synchrosyntheses]

“Then I will read, and leave tonight to sleep. If you or your brothers want to ask me anything, feel free.”

[calescent]

"You could sleep here if you want. We have room."

[synchrosyntheses]

“Thank you, but I feel — exposed to strangeness — enough as it is.” Weak smile. “Not that I would not have been even more so if I were to eat at your table, but sleeping is another thing entirely.”

[calescent]

"Okay. Up to you."

[synchrosyntheses]

“Thank you for offering.”

Back to reading.

[calescent]

Upstairs goes Kiri.

[synchrosyntheses]

By the time it seems a suitable time to sleep, Teytis has finished The Etiquette Book and all the volumes of Developments in Trade and Manufacture, and is part of the way through The Monarchy of Welce.

She makes her way out of the house and to her discreet tower, discreetly.

There is much to sleep on.

The next day, she returns to Kiribel's house at an hour that her reading suggests is a reasonable one for visitors.

[calescent]

The Etiquette Book says that it is polite to leave at least an hour after dawn to allow everyone you're visiting to be fully awake when they greet you.

An hour after dawn, someone who is not Kiri and doesn't look enough like her to be a brother opens the door. She is only momentarily startled by the stuff gridded around Teytis's person. "...Good morning."

[synchrosyntheses]

“Good morning. I am Teytis tel Jobont and I wish to speak with Kiribel Ardelay, if it is a convenient time for her.”

[calescent]

"Right this way," says the person, and she leads her into Kiri's office, where Kiri is.

"Good morning," says Kiri. "How are you?"

[synchrosyntheses]

Teytis shrugs and speaks a non-Welchin phrase. “Or rather: my body is healthy and my self is as I will it. Not an easy translation. And you?”

[calescent]

"I'm fine. I found some more books you might like after you've finished with the ones I located yesterday. They're all down in the library."

[synchrosyntheses]

“Thank you. But I had thought that I might first show you my library.”

[calescent]

"I'd love to see your library. ...Is it in your floating thing?"

[synchrosyntheses]

“Er — the information is there, yes, but it's not kept in books. Sorry, my use of ‘library’ was mostly an analogy. Here.”

The equally fancy box that's been following Teytis around opens a bit and a paper-thin sheet of — something smooth and flexible — slips out and lays itself neatly on Kiri's desk.

It could be the table of contents for a very foreign and very eccentric encyclopedia, but the references do not much resemble page numbers.

Its listings, with a mix of translated and untranslated-with-annotations words, include such relevant and irrelevant subjects as: kored (“prerequisite to telekinesis and shapeshifting”), pimsilt techniques (“making things without telekinesis and shapeshifting”), radio ("communications machines"), computers ("thinking machines"), energy sources, economics, leadership, recipes, fiction, messages for hypothetical aliens, transportation, and sanitation.

“I have much information that is reference material, and more that happened to be in demand when I was brought here; this is just a sampling particularly including some things I thought you might be interested in or that I could help with myself. Whatever interests you, I can give you more detailed listings, or talk about it, or translate works on the subject.”

[calescent]

"I am interested in all of these things, but - given that we can't use kored - especially pimsilt, radio, computers, and transportation."

[synchrosyntheses]

With gentle amusement: “Perhaps you could pick only one subject, to start? I'm sure you'll find my translations will need work and I'd rather get the next one right from the beginning.”

[calescent]

"Okay. Radio first."

[synchrosyntheses]

“I admit I was hoping you'd be interested, as radio is what allows enjobont to be useful. Radios are machines that you can use to speak with other people or send any kind of information from one place to another almost instantly.”

Here is a narrower index! It goes all the way down to titles of specific books, which are on subjects including electrical engineering, radio design and construction, spectrum management, and operator procedure and etiquette. There are even books that are about all of these things and more, like the ambitious-sounding Box of Scraps: Getting from Nothing to Everything. Unfortunately that one's annotated with “(the specific methods assumed require lankored)”.

[calescent]

"That would be very useful, assuming radios can be built by local people, or by you in very large quantity."

[synchrosyntheses]

“Now that you point it out, the simpler construction techniques, like in that one book I noted, all involve a lantamsilt so they wouldn't work for you. Hm. It will take some research to figure out the best route to start being able to make purely pimsilt radios. But I can certainly make you radios. How large a quantity were you thinking of? Or rather, what is the communication problem you are thinking of solving? In my world, almost everyone has a radio, but there are ways to start smaller, depending on the need.”

[calescent]

"There is no specific problem that needs radios, but a lot of things would be better if a lot of people had them. How far can they reach?"