Tycho#Artemis was unsure if what he was seeing was a flurry of chaotic activity or some tightly choreographed dance. Part of this assessment, he guessed, was due to the relatively small number of individuals for the number of instances moving around. There were at least a dozen instances of True Name that he could see, and then at least that many of a gentleman who looked to be in his well-preserved forties, a slender without being lanky, tall without being looming.
And that was it. Well over twenty instances of two individuals milling around what appeared to be a farm of cubicles, each walled with glass, the upper half of which was frosted.
Ringing this bank of cubicles were walls of frosted glass, broken at regular intervals with doors which ey supposed must be offices. Between those doors were couches, looking pleasantly soft in his exhaustion, and an array of padded stools or chairs with interrupted backs which he supposed must be perfect for those endowed with tails, given the occasional skunk or man --- Jonas, perhaps? --- relaxing in them, chatting amiably during what must be either breaks or informal meetings.
And yet, for all that activity, it was incredibly quiet. There must be dozens of cones of silence set up, spanning cube walls, covering banks of couches, even hovering over those walking the aisles.
"What is this?" he asked the skunk standing beside him.
She gestured him to a couch already containing a young woman, picking at her nails. Short, curly black hair framing a round face. "Headquarters, though that makes it sound far more formal than it really is. It is a place for Jonas and I to work together in our various instances."
He sank down into the couch beside the woman. "That sounds kind of formal to me. What are you working on that requires cubicles?"
True Name laughed, claiming a stool facing the couch where she sat, straight-backed. "The informal aspect of it is that we are working on essentially whatever we want. Co-working space, perhaps? It is a space where we can have conversations, write, think. If there are a dozen of us, there are three dozen projects."
"And the message from Artemis is one of them?"
"It is several of them, yes. It has spun off a few projects of its own. Ah! Jonas. Which are you?" she said when one of the men blipped into existence, already seated in one of the chairs.
He grinned, crossing his legs in front of him at the ankles. "Di5." He nodded toward Tycho. "Just call me Jonas, though. True Name is just being a snot."
The skunk kicked out at one of his ankles.
"Deserved that," he said, grinning. "You must be Mr. Brahe, yeah? Nice to meet you."
He nodded, said, "Just Tycho is fine."
Jonas nodded absently. Without any visible signal a cone of silence fell over the area, dimming what noise remained outside of it to the barest murmur.
"I am Why Ask Questions When The Answers Will Not Help," the woman said in a tone that seemed to sit just shy of laughter. "Answers Will Not Help will do."
"Answers, in a rush," Jonas said, at which she kicked his free ankle.
"If you call me Answers, I will beat the shit out of you," she said though that near-laugh took any sting out of the words.
"To business, then." True Name gestured towards Tycho. "Tycho, here, is the one that answered the message, as you all know, so I have encouraged him to fork and join us. Tycho#Artemis will be working here, and Tycho#Tasker will be working with--"
"Codrin?" Jonas asked, grin turning sly.
"Of course."
"Well, if you are the one to thank for kicking this whole thing off, perhaps you can enlighten us as to why?"
Tycho felt anxiety tighten within his chest. "I uh...I don't know. I guess I was the first one to read the message, and I didn't know what to do with that, so I just replied without really thinking, I guess."
"You were not the first to read the message," True Name said, smiling almost pityingly at him. "And you need not be anxious. As I have already said, we have been wargaming this possibility since we were forced to concede that aspect of the Module."
He frowned. "Well, if you read it first, why'd you let it through so that I could see it?"
"We are not the astronomers," Answers Will Not Help said, shrugging. "That is your job, is it not?"
"Don't you want to control the situation or something, though?"
True Name shook her head. "It is not our job to control."
"But the History--"
"Do you remember the motto of the Council of Eight, Tycho?"
He frowned. "To guide but not to govern, right?"
True Name nodded. "We are not controlling anything. We are guiding. Of what use would be control in a place such as this? People can do whatever they want."
"Was the History wrong then? That you didn't control Secession and Launch?"
"We guided them both," Jonas said, waving his hand. "Just as we guided the History. Even the Bălan clade knows this."
"Why, though?" Tycho asked.
"Social engineering," True Name said, then nodded toward Jonas. "We should not get too sidetracked, though. Jonas, you had more questions?"
"I did, yeah. First off, can you give me an overall breakdown of the time frame involved here?"
"Well...wait, can you tell me how long it's been since the message arrived? I haven't slept in I don't know how long."
"A little less than a day."
"Well, then we have a little less than forty days until their closest approach, at which point they'll start moving away from us again."
"And what does that approach mean for us?"
Tycho rubbed at the back of his neck, searching for the best way to explain it. "All it means is that that is the point when the transmission times between our two vehicles will be the shortest, then it'll start getting longer again."
Jonas nodded. "And that approach isn't all that close, is it?"
"Oh god no. Three light-seconds is, uh...nine hundred thousand kilometers? Something like that."
"Good, thanks for confirming. I'm going to ungate the next set of messages. Ready?"
Jonas did not actually wait for confirmation before Tycho was given access. Or, rather, access was forced upon him. Rather like a sensorium message, the text from the perisystem architecture forced itself into his mind.
> If possible, in 900 hours orient down 0.3142 radians relative to your sun reference point source of this transmission to align courses. If possible, accelerate 0.00029c to approach matched velocity. Confirm actions taken.
> Prepare airlocked area with locked-down edit permissions dimensions 20m by 20m height 5m and two sandbox areas for rest for us and you dimensions 20m by 20m height 5m. Confirm actions taken.
> Prepare party of five consciousness-bearing systems containing one element of leadership, one to record in any capacity, one scientist, two of own choice. Duplicate, prepare to send one set to us, and send other set to above location. Prepare receive five in turn, similar roles. Expect four categories of consciousness-bearing systems. Confirm actions taken.
"Talk us through your thoughts," True Name said. "That will help you process, and you may catch something that we have not. This is your role here, Tycho Brahe."
He nodded. "Okay. So, from the top. They suggest we make some course alterations to, I suppose, keep us traveling parallel with them, and then accelerate to get closer to their velocity. Does that sound right?"
Jonas nodded. "We've talked with the perisystem engineers who work with the attitude thrusters and propulsion. They say that they can accommodate the maneuver. We can accelerate a little bit if we use half our fuel, but we're beyond the point where the solar sail is doing us much good, and we want to preserve some."
"How much acceleration? I mean, I don't have any training in the physics of spaceflight--"
"We've got that covered."
"Oh. Well, how much acceleration, then?"
"About a third of what they asked. It'll extend the period of time that we're in useful Ansible range by a few days."
"If you say so." he shrugged. "I guess this is to help extend the duration that we can transfer back and forth?"
"Yeah, basically," Jonas said. "Do you have thoughts on that?"
Tycho frowned. He wasn't sure why they kept asking him questions about his sentiments on things far outside his area of expertise. Of what use were his thoughts on the matter. "I mean, it makes sense, as far as any of this done."
"How much astronomy you hope to learn from the Artemisians will rely on how long we stay in contact." Answers Will Not Help grinned at him. "Does that bit make sense, at least?"
He sat up straighter. "Oh, uh...you mean someone will be gathering all that information? Will we be able to request it via radio?"
True Name smiled, and this time there was pity in the expression. "I know that you said starting from the top, but Tycho, you must understand that you are ideally situated to be the scientist among our party of five. You were the one to answer their call, were you not?"
He couldn't tell what expression or expressions crossed his face, but it must've been amusing, as Answers Will Not Help laughed and slapped him on the knee. "You will be fine, Tycho."
"Why me, though?" he stammered. "There have to be smarter people on board! People who would love to meet aliens and know just what to ask them."
The skunk across from him waved her hand to dismiss the comment. "You will be the scientist. We do not want someone who is smarter than you. We do not want someone who knows just what to ask them. We want you because you are the type of person who grants consent to join us without consulting anyone first. That and a few other factors that we have taken into account leave our decision clear."
"Besides," the woman beside him said, still giggling. "You will get to ask four spacefaring races astronomy questions. Does that not excite you?"
"I...four?" His head was swimming, not aided by the stilted way these Odists seemed to talk.
"Four categories of consciousness-bearing systems. Firstrace through fourthrace. Seems pretty obvious what they are saying to me."
He swallowed dryly.
"You will be the scientist," True Name said. "I will be acting in a leadership capacity, having lost the coin-toss with Jonas. Codrin Balan will be our recorder. Answers Will Not Help will be one of the other representatives, and we are searching for the second."
"Two of you?"
"Sending two members of the same clade who look different will give us an idea of how they view forking." Jonas shrugged. "That's why I cheated to win the coin-toss, at least. I want to see what they do with one skunk Odist and one human Odist."
Tycho nodded. He felt slow, somehow. He felt stupid. It wasn't even that they were speaking about things he didn't understand because he hadn't learned them yet so much as they were speaking as though their actions took place on some higher plane of existence, some place completely inaccessible to him.
"Apologies for sidetracking your top-to-bottom reading. Please continue," True Name said.
"Uh, alright." He shook his head to try and clear it. It did not work. "Instructions for transferring a consciousness-bearing system...I'm assuming that's their version of the Ansible?"
"Yes. We received the specifications for that immediately after this message. I will not bore you with their contents, but the sys-side Ansible techs assure us that it works much the same as ours and will require only software changes, nothing physical."
He hesitated, then, seeing no possible reply that wouldn't make him sound like an idiot, continued. "Alright. Then they want us to prepare a space for them. I don't know what airlocked means, though."
"We're assuming they mean as in a DMZ. Something completely separate from the rest of our System, which is what we were planning, anyway." Jonas grinned lopsidedly. "There's a tech term, air-gapped, which means that there is no physical connection between two devices, so they can't possibly communicate. Maybe that's what they meant? We'll just have to hope we get it right."
"So, a secure place to meet, which we were planning on anyway. Do you think they're worried we'll attack them or something?"
True Name and Jonas exchanged a quick glance, and the skunk, suddenly more serious than she'd been since he'd met her, said, "Expand on that." Not a question. A command.
He mastered the urge to shy away from her. "I just mean that, if we can't promise them that we're universally on board with having them visit us, that puts the talks at risk, right?"
She leaned back in her chair, frowning, as two more instances of her forked off and dashed down the aisles to a cubicle. "This is why we are talking with you, Tycho. Thank you for proving your worth so quickly."
"This wasn't part of your calculations or whatever?"
"It was," Jonas said. "But the fact that you thought of it so quickly was not."
He shook his head. "I still don't understand why me, though."
"You are in absolutely no way special, my dear." Answers Will Not Help slapped his knee, her voice once more full of smiles. "You are in absolutely all ways average. This allows us to use you as a barometer for how we can expect the rest of the System to react."
"I mean, I guess I'm average, but that doesn't seem like much data. Aren't you asking more people?"
She was back to laughing. "How many people do you imagine know about this, Tycho?"
He sighed, slouching further down into the couch. "Right. Okay. Twenty by twenty by five meters for the conference room and their rest area. Uh...maybe that says how big they are?"
"Or maybe just the size of their DMZ so that we can meet on equal grounds on both sides," Jonas said. "We won't know until it happens. It does show us that they rest, though, or at least expect to take breaks from the talks. That they say two means that they think we will as well."
*Rest,* he thought. *Rest sounds good.*
Aloud, he said, "And I guess the next bit we've talked about some. Maybe four races. They say 'consciousness-bearing systems' and don't name their races, so maybe it's complicated. If they've picked up three other races before meeting us, maybe very, very complicated."
"I have been thinking," the woman next to him said, sounding thoughtful. "Perhaps some of them were not biological races. They did not say people or species."
"AIs, you mean?"
She shrugged. "Or something. It might also be a caste thing. You will notice that there are two firstrace emissaries, one of which is the leader, and then secondrace and fourthrace only get representatives, no titles. There are many possibilities."
After a pause, he asked, "And is that "We welcome you" an invitation to join them?"
"Maybe," Jonas said. "We don't know yet. We're going to keep talking to them and try and get a better feel for it. If it means "You're welcome to join us", that's certainly better than "We welcome you because you have no other choice". We're working on it."
Tycho laughed tiredly. "Way above my pay grade."
True Name grinned toothily.
"Any thoughts on the names?" Jonas asked.
"Well, I guess it's interesting that the two firstrace people...individuals...er, consciousness-bearing systems share a name. Maybe they're a clade, like...I mean..."
"Like me?" Jonas said, smirking. "Don't worry, Jonas Ka and Ko already had their laugh over it. But no, we don't know that one way or another."
He felt heat rise to his cheeks, but nodded all the same. "The rest, I don't know. They all sound different, I guess. The fourthrace one is the only other one with two names."
"We cannot make any real guesses, ourselves," True Name said. "We have been told that a stolon is a botany term, but that is likely only a coincidence."
"Well, only other thing I can think of is that they ask for confirmation on all actions taken. What are you going to say to those?"
True Name's eyes grew distant as, he imagined, she accessed an exo with the response text prepared. "To the first, "We will orient as described and accelerate 0.00014c". To the second, "Instructions received, integration commencing immediately, estimated time to completion 428 hours". To the third, "Areas prepared". To the fourth, "Preparing party, we will duplicate and be ready to send on an agreed upon time"."
"Anything for the "We welcome you" or the list of names?"
"We will repeat the "We welcome you" message, and it will be signed with your name."
He stood up so quickly it made him dizzy. "What?"
The other three laughed, True Name eventually continuing, "It will be signed "True Name, leadership". We will send them the complete list of names when it is confirmed. You need not worry, Tycho."
He remained standing, swaying slightly and trying to blink away dancing black spots. "I think...I think I need to lay down."
The skunk nodded, stood, and took him by the elbow. "You likely do. You have been awake for almost fifty-five hours. We have a room prepared for you."
Jonas stood, dusting off his slacks, and shook Tycho's hand. "Welcome aboard. And hey, congrats on first contact."
