A Study of Hummus

Alice's second tour of the ship, with Dokon, had gotten her a lot  more considered looks - but not many more acquaintances. And certainly  nothing that looked like an office full of programmers.

So it was  odd, though not completely unexpected, that She and Ken'di made the  short trip to the inner ring. The atmosphere felt a lot more like a  college dorm - the occasional alcove with a few off-duty people hanging  out. One handed her a flier under an air of secrecy - one which she  couldn't read. She caught herself before slipping it into shirt's  neckline. Pockets. She had specifically gotten an outfit with pockets.  She should use them. And maybe ask someone to translate later. Or, maybe  she wouldn't have to.

One group looked suspiciously like they  were playing Settlers of Catan. Or maybe it was a card game with  hexagons? She was sure she'd heard Ken'di whisper "nerds" while passing  them.

The hallway snaked back and forth more.

She almost  ran into Ken'di once, when the latter suddenly stopped. The floor was  covered with... grass? In all too familiar shades of blue and purple.  Ken'di pounded on the door the patch of grass grew out from - "Hiusta!  Keep it to yourself or in the garden." Ken'di took a long step over the  patch - legs telescoping out of her pants to do so. Alice followed  suite. Then they kept walking.

The twists and turns of the  hallway did make the place feel a bit more cozy than the outer torus -  not being able to see the hallway curl upwards in the distance - but  Alice really hadn't figured out how far they had gone before Ken'di  stopped at a doorway and knocked.

A stab of pain shot through  Alice's head... it passed quickly. Something had been said. She didn't  know just what. Ken'di opened the door by it's handle and pulled her in.

~

It  was a computer desk by the door, obviously - and was less an office  chair than a vat. It's occupant... was quickly trying to arrange  herself. And by arrange, she was re-forming legs to slide into a pair of  ankle-length boot beside the vat.

"Alice, this is Gil'peve - and  -" Alice could swear she could see through Gil'peve, who was suddenly  enormous after getting out of the vat chair. She gave a bow, and not  knowing what else to do, Alice bowed back awkwardly. "- and I thought  you said they were on duty now."

"I might have let it slip I was expecting a guest."

"That's the new human! Awesome!" Alice didn't even see where the third alien came from - but suddenly she was very close. Very close. Unusually large light blue knockers pressing against her own close, "How ya dooin toots? You ain't looking for-"

"BAEDOT.  HEEL." Another arm stretched from - ok, another room, grabbing one of  the personal space invader's large hair curls and dragging her back to a  safer distance, "My apologies, madam. While I can't force my sister to  go to work, I will try and manage her."

"Uh. Ok." Alice, not knowing what else to do, adjusted her blouse.

"Let's  - uh- try that again." Ken'di made a noise that was supposed to be  clearing her throat. It wasn't, because it didn't, "The water slut is  Gil'peve, the OTHER slut is Baedot-"

"I wouldn't characterize her as-"

"-And the dictionary is Bridit, her sister."

"Her sister? Like-" Alice paused, "your momma died?"

"Oh, she lived a good life, don't worry about that, she got ta bang a lotta-" Baedot got a slap across the mouth.

"It was Bidhit? Wasn't it? Your parent?" Gil'peve was trying to insert herself back into the conversation.

"Yes. Your guest didn't come to learn about hereditary strains, though," Bridit gently led her sister away from the other three.

"Right,  right - you wanted the 'daily newspaper', right? I hope a tablet is  alright?" She leaned back over her computer desk, which she now towered  over, "I ran today's through the translator - that I can set up an  automated job, printing is above my pay grade - but there are some  obvious gaps in the language model. I think Bridit would probably love  to help straightening those out, if you have some time free."

"Sure?"  Alice looked for somewhere to sit - and found Gil'peve's chair, what  looked to be a daybed, and the floor. Baedot's gaze convinced her that  the daybed was not the best option. She took the floor. Ken'di hopped on  the daybed, Baedot gave a look of betrayal.

"You've used a ... Bridit? ██████████████████████?" Gil'peve wasn't giving Alice a headache. Yet.

"I'd  go with a 'monologue probe'. Or 'Sensor', perhaps? I've been left with  the impression most English speakers are adverse to the word 'probe'."  Bridit was slowly letting up her hug of her sister, arms unwinding.

"That doesn't sound familiar." Alice suddenly had an image of tiny robots being injected into her bloodstream. That couldn't be it.

"Monologue  Sensor it is. Basically, it's to measure the level of comprehension  through signals sent through your body." Gil'peve was sorting through a  drawer, "It's a test of my work, not of you. OK? If you hit anything you  don't understand, we'll talk you through it."

"Sure, ok." Confidence. Show confidence, Alice.

Gil'peve  handed her a tablet - just like the many she'd seen stacked everywhere  in the lab - except this one had a cable coming from it.

"Hey,  hun... you probably just want to close your eyes for a second," Ken'di's  arm stretched out and covered Alice's face, "just get it over with.  Hun, you'll be fine, just let this happen."

Something poked Alice  in the top of the head. She tried to bow her head down, but the pressure  just got harder. It was in her head. it was going straight for her  neck. She... they were avoiding the throat, but not completely. Her  tongue curled back to try and touch it, but got no more answers. She  felt a gag coming on, but fought it. Whatever else it was, the thin rod  stopped somewhere around where her heart used to be.

"Ok, see?  You're fine," Ken'di hand lifted away. the cord attached to the tablet  now curled up towards her head and out of sight.

"Should I want to feel like throwing up?"

"Like, sexy throw-" Baedar was quickly silenced. Again.

"I think it would be better if you sat in the chair if you feel like you may vomit," Her sister offered.

"No it's..." Alice scratched at her neck, "Let's get this over with."

Reading  through rhe first section was fine, mostly numbers, ship statistics,  even if the units were not things she recognized. Micro-grams? What?

Then  was an article about the dynamics of the Great Red Spot Study. Which  was sort of boring. An update to the sky survey, which apparently  discovered some stars invisible from the home system - yeah they must  have their own planets... the ones Alice had seen on the wall clocks. An  article on some sort of earth plant description - a lot of this was in  their weird circles language.

"What is... Circle with a little square on the right that looks like a backwards C."
 
"Oh,  that's ██████ ██ a ██████████████  ██████████. That article didn't  translate too well, did it?" Gil'peve took out another tablet and paged  to it. "Bridit, ██████ █████ █████ ███ █████ ███████████ ██████████  █████? ███ ██ ███████ ██████ ██████████ ██ ██████ ██ ██████ █████  ███████ ██ ████ ██ █████ ███████ ████ ███████ ████████████ ███████  ███████ ████ ██ ███████ - ██ ██ ███████?

Bridit scratched at her  chin before replying, "██████████ ████ ████ █████ █████ ██ █████████████  ██." She had pretty much forgotten to restrain her sister at this  point.

"█████████ █████ ████ ██████ ██████...?" Ken'di wondered aloud, fascinated.

"██  ██████ █████ █████████ █████████ ████ ████████. █████████ ███ █████████  ████ ██ █████ ███ ███████, ████████ ██████ ████ ██ ███ █████████."  Bridit was pretty sure.

"What the fuck's up with this human?"  Baedar kneeled in front of what moments before hadn't been a melted pile  of pink goo, trying to keep it from running across the floor.

"███████!" came from a trio of voices.

"Wait?  Does she hydrate a lot? I have some desiccant packs," Gil'peve dove for  a different drawer, "I mean, not lately, but I got some bad sweats once  in a while."

"I didn't think so. ███████," Ken'di didn't even  know what she is searching for. "We need to get her to the doctor. I  heard somthing like this happened after the chime ceremony. Container -  do you have anything smaller than that chair? Carryable?"

"Can't  we call the Doctor here?" Bridit came from the other room with a large  handled pot, and an open sleep pod container "Don't ask. But shouldn't  we be getting Lainyng?"

"She wouldn't forgive me if I did - she... she doesn't quite get generations yet."

The four worked to get as much of the soggy pink mass in the pair of pots at they could, putting a large desiccant pack in each.

"Gil'peve - you can't lift like that, can you? Call ahead. Ken'di?"

"I've got the pod."

"Baedar, help me. That handle. Oh hell, why did they put the doctor in the other ring."