“You appear-seem displeased or uncomfortable,” Turun Ko said, head pointing down the table toward Why Ask Questions. “Can you explain if able or comfortable?”
She looked over to True Name, who gave a small nod of acknowledgement.
“Some of us here on the System do not feel comfortable with unbounded time,” she said. “We will discuss more as the meeting continues.”
-“Aet,” it said. Okay.
+“Aët,” it said. Okay.
After a moment’s silence, the skunk continued. “Per our agreement, this meeting here on Castor will be focused on knowledge-share surrounding the topics of linguistics and science, with particular attention astronomy and spaceflight, while those aboard Artemis will focus on society, politics, and psychology. I would like to open with a round of free questioning, if you are amenable, in order to find a few examples for which directions to take the meeting in moving forward. Do you agree?”
“Yes,” Turun Ka said. “One question per delegate should be an appropriate way to begin. I invite you to begin, leader True Name.”
The response was quick in coming. “We have divided civilizations up into a range of classes depending on their energy usage: planet scale, planetary system scale, and galaxy scale. At what stage were each of your races, and, if you have ran across any additional races, at what scale did they work?”
@@ -72,7 +72,7 @@“Thank you, representative Iska.”
“I will ask the final question,” they said. “You say that we will have the ability to fork. Is there not risk of divergence?”
True Name answered, “There is. Why Ask Questions is a fork from me, and I am in turn a fork from the root instance, Michelle Hadje. We have individuated in the last two hundred twenty years.”
-That unnerved, anxious expression returned to the secondracer’s face, but they bowed their head all the same. “Aet. Thank you.”
+That unnerved, anxious expression returned to the secondracer’s face, but they bowed their head all the same. “Aët. Thank you.”
Standing, True Name bowed deeply once more. “Thank you once again for joining us. Let us retire to our rest areas to compare notes and strategize, then reconvene in one hour’s time to begin in earnest.”
Both delegations stood and returned their acknowledging gestures, whatever they might be, and each walked toward their respective rest areas.
Codrin let True Name and Why Ask Questions pass em, catching Sarah’s eye to walk slower. Once the Odists were several paces ahead, heads together and talking quietly, ey asked, “What do you make of it?”
@@ -84,7 +84,7 @@“I don’t know about that either, as representative. I hope I get to ask more. Though, well…” Sarah glanced over to where True Name and Why Ask Questions had sat at a table, still talking earnestly. “I don’t know what’s more confusing. The emissaries or the Odists.”