Standing in front of the line of us waiting for the airlock to cycle, I don't think I've ever been this nervous! Even during my graduation, waiting to find out if I was selected for Far Reach's mission, nothing was as nerve wracking as this. But, I had to be strong. I was going to represent humanity and K'laxikind here. I took a deep breath, held it for two, and let it out through my nose. Here we go.
The outer lock door cycled and the first thing that I noticed was the smell of the umbilical. It wasn't bad so much, as it was unfamiliar. My nose was inundated with smells I've never smelled before. Starbases had a smell about them. They're self contained units where sometimes thousands of sapients lived, worked and played together, of course they're going to smell. Doesn't matter how fastidious you were about cleaning, something just permeates the walls. This was just that but...different. The smells of thousands of sapients I've never seen before.
The second thing I noticed was how warm it was! It was warm and moist like a hot summer day. We don't normally keep our Starbases this warm or moist. Moisture promotes corrosion and heat was cheap to make, but expensive to dissipate. It was odd, it almost felt wasteful.
I walked down the short umbilical until I reached the door to the Starbase. Like ours, it was an iris type door. Maybe that's universal. "Far Reach, you're sure the gasses on the other side are breathable?" I asked, one last time.
"Sensors indicate that they're pretty close to Earth and K'lax, Melody." Far Reach said, kindly. "The specific gas mixture is a little different. A touch more xenon than what we use, maybe just a bit less carbon dioxide. Oxy levels are fine though, you can breathe it, no worries."
"Okay then, here goes..." and I touched the pad by the iris.
With a whoosh, it snapped open. That was way faster than home, and I was startled. I looked out, probably making a stupid expresion, and I saw them.
It was a group of 6 sapients in front, with a small crowd behind them. Three of them had iridescent feathers! They looked almost like gigantic birds! They even had wings! I wondered if they could fly. The wings didn't look long enough though. Maybe they evolved into being more like arms. The other three looked like they were a sea creature long in their past. They had tentacles they stood on, and looked like they had no bones. If you squinted, maybe they looked like Octopuses, but they didn't really look like octopuses. Just the tentacles and the lack of bones and the large, wet eyes, though they weren't dripping or anything. They were standing apart though. With a large space between them. That's odd. I would have figured that they would be all together.
One of the bird looking ones took a step forward and said, "Welcome to Reach to the Might of Vzzx. I am Starlight on a Moonless Evening, this is The Smell Of The Ocean and there is Rapid River Roaring."
They took a step back and then one of the octopus people took a step forward. "Welcome from us as well! I am Vivvix, this is Zemmlin and over here is Ottarn."
Then, Vivvix took a step back and waited. Maybe this was some kind of ritual. Mentally, I shrugged and took a step forward. I took a breath and said "Thank you for your warm welcome. My name is Melody Mullen, with me is my Captain Selem Q'ari, our linguist Fer'resi Perinem and one of our engineers, Omar Adel." At each mention of their names, everyone nodded or did something to indicate which person I was talking about. Fer'resi did a little wave even!
After I finished and the ritual seemed complete, I took a step back. Only then, did I notice how they reacted.
Maybe the nanobots programed me with some extra ability to tell facial expressions, but everyone seemed shocked.
If they were humans, they'd be jaws on the floor shocked.
Uh oh. This keeps happening to me.
One of the bird people, The Smell of the Ocean I think, spoke. "S-So, you can understand us?" They asked, haltingly.
I nodded, then realizing they might not know that gesture, and said "Yes, I can understand you..." Was I not supposed to be able to? "Can you understand me?"
The Smell of The Ocean's feathers ruffled. Maybe they were embarrassed? They were uncomfortable about something. "A bit, yes. But you are..." They stopped. Their head rotated slightly. Their eyes are more forward on their face than Earth birds so they must have binocular vision but for the life of me it looked like they were trying to get a look at me out of both eyes. Maybe an ancient instinct that has turned into body language. They took a deep breath and started again. "I am speaking my people's standard spacefaring tongue. Can you understand me?"
"Yes" I said, puzzled.
They did their version of a nod. I wonder how I knew that? They spoke again "Now, I am speaking the language of the Northern Continent of my people's home planet. It hasn't been spoken outside of legal briefings for five thousand cycles. Today, it is more a ceremonial language than anything. Only people like me can understand it, and even then only haltingly. I was a student of it, and so can speak it fluently. There are fewer then one hundred of us." They stopped and stared at me. "Do you understand me?"
My eyes went wide. "Y-Yes, I understand you." I answered quietly.
With an expression that I could only describe as their version of raised eyebrows, Zemmlin looked at them, then at me, and spoke. "I see what they are doing, let me try. I am speaking my people's home planetary language. My... colleague The Smell of the Ocean here does not understand it. Do you?"
It felt like ice was injected into my veins as understanding dawned. "Y-Yes, I understand it." I whispered.
It was my turn to reply. "When you speak to me, and I reply, am I replying in your language, or the same language every time?"
Starlight on a Moonless Evening replied this time. "Every time you speak, you are replying in the Holy Tongue. That is understood by all."
I blinked. The what?
"I'm sorry, the what?"
Starlight made a gesture that I knew was a shrug. For the life of me, I couldn't tell you how I knew though. "The Holy Tongue. The words of the Builders."
That last one struck a chord. I could hear the proper noun. "Do you mean the builders of the Warp Gates?"
Rapid River Roaring laughed. "Who else would we mean, Holy One? They built everything."
And I thought being called Lieutenant was bad.
Vivvex came forward now and said "It seems we all have something to learn from each other. We would like to learn how you came to us through the Warp Gates which we thought were long deactivated and are speaking The Holy Words and you... probably have things to ask us too. Do you take food? Come. It's meal time for us. We can eat and speak afterwards."
"L-let me talk to my companions for a moment, please."
Vivvex nodded and took a step back. I turned around and faced everyone. "Okay, how much of that did you get?" I asked.
Fer'resi was the first to reply. "Um Melody, how many languages do you know? I noticed they kept taking turns talking to you in clearly different languages and you replied every time."
"I think I know... all of them," I said awkwardly. "I know, it sounds crazy, but they said I'm speaking "The Holy Tongue."
"The what?" Omar asked, incredulous.
"I know, right? I think they mean the language of the Builders of the Warp Gate, of everything. Oh! They also said they thought the Gate was disabled until we came through it."
"Disabled?" Captain Q'ari said, thinking. "Given what we saw at the previous address, I hope we didn't unlock the door for something to come through here."
I didn't even think of that. "Oh shoot. I hope you're right." I clicked my radio "Hey Far Reach, Gene, please keep an extra sharp eye out for anything following us through the Warp Gate. The locals said they thought it was disabled until we came through it."
"You got it Melody." Gene replied. "How's the meet and greet going?"
"I don't know Gene. I think they think I'm a living God."
"In a good way, or a bad way?" Gene asked in that joking but not really tone that humans use sometimes.
"Too soon to tell." I said honestly. "We're about to go to lunch I think,"
"Ooh, tell me if you eat anything good, tell me and I'll try it when I get to go ashore."
"Will do, Gene. You take care. Far Reach, I admit this is a long shot, but how's the language model coming?"
Far Reach chuckled. "I was just chatting with Fer'resi. It's tough to build a language model when you can understand everyone but keep replying in one language. We're getting something though. Fer'resi thinks it might be enough to be understood. We're going to be replying in your language though. If they really think it's a Holy Tongue, they might be uncomfortable with that. They must have translators though, let's see if we can buy or borrow one. That might help. Even if we can't interface it with our computers, someone could wear it and speak to us and we could accelerate our language training."
"Good Idea. They invited us to lunch or something, so I'll ask them."
I turned to Captain Q'ari. "They want to invite us to lunch. Do you want me to say yes?"
Selem's ears twitched in a way that signaled resignation and frustration. Hah. I think I can tell K'laxi expressions better with these nano machines helping too! "We should probably accept, yes." She turned and looked at us. "Did everyone bring their portable mass spectrometers?"
We all have a small mass-spec on our wrists. It can scan food and drink and make sure there aren't any obviously poisonous things or K'laxi allergens in it. It won't tell us if things taste good, but it'll tell us if we can eat them without going into anaphylactic shock or ruining our livers.
Nods of yes all around. "Go ahead and accept the invitation Melody." Huh. She didn't call me Lieutenant Mullen. Interesting.
I turned back around. "After a little deliberation with my team, we would be grateful to accept your invitation to dine together. Please lead the way."
Again, they were taken aback at my speech. I had a hunch that they were just not used to someone speaking to them in the language I'm speaking to them in. It's like a language they had only read or studied in school and here I was talking to them in it like it was normal.
At least they mostly understood me, and I can apparently understand them in any language they spoke.
Starlight bowed low and spread their wings and said "Wonderful. Please follow me."
They led us away from the dock and as we walked I looked around.
The Starbase was different from the Joint K'laxi/Human Starbase I lived on before embarking. It was more...organic? Maybe it was a function of the fact that I think it was built out of an asteroid, but it definitely felt more grown than built in places. There were curves and smooth walls and dark grays and browns. The lighting was more organic than back home too. It was warm and bright and led an airiness to the Starbase that it would be lacking otherwise. We were pretty far from this system's star and we were not in orbit around a planet, so the cheeriness was appreciated.
And the people! All kinds of people. I saw more of the bird people, more of the octopus people and so many others. There were these large bipedal beings in very complicated looking pressure suits. Maybe they're from a world that uses a different breathing mixture than here. There were ones with long legs with knees that were almost parallel with their heads! They had large segmented eyes like an insect and it always felt like they were watching us as we walked by.
Come to think of it, everyone was watching us as we walked by.
They weren't too happy about it.
My newfound ability to know everyone's body language was ringing alarm bells. Everyone hated to see us. Especially the Bird and Octopus people.
We turned a corner and came upon what I figured was the main promenade.
I nearly lost my footing, I was so startled. It was gigantic! Far larger and more dense than any city I ever visited on Meíhuā. I've never been to Earth, but I bet this was more crowded than some Earth cities! It was so tall too. More than 200 meters straight up if I had to guess. There were windows and lights and signs all the way up.
While we were walking Fer'resi was trying his best to speak with The Smell of The Ocean. I could understand both of them, so it was a little odd to hear.
"Um, what about this? Hello?"
"Oh, I got that one! Hello!"
"Amazing! Try this: My name is Fer'resi, what's yours?"
Ocean shook his feathers sadly "I didn't get that, friend."
Fer'resi made notes in his pad. This time, his translator spoke "Do you understand this?
Ocean's feathers rippled with surprise. "I do understand it. But your accent is very thick. How did you do that?"
Fer'resi smiled. "Our Ship, Far Reach helped. We're working together to build a language model. If you have a translator we can purchase or borrow, we can refine it further."
Ocean made an expression that I knew was a nod. "We do have them. I'll make sure you get one, yes. You can even keep it to help refine your language model, provided you provide us with an update so we can update our translators as well."
Fer'resi frowned and made more notes. "I got the majority of that, but I missed part of it. Oh well. We'll get more accurate with time."
I had a thought. "Hey Fer'resi. Speak to me in English."
"Um okay." He thought for a moment. "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party."
"Coming to the aid of what party?" I asked, confused.
He chuckled. "It's apparently old filler text that people used to use on mechanical type writing machines. It's nonsense. But, you did understand it?"
"I did. It was easy."
"I have a feeling Melody, that you now can understand every language. I have no idea what those nano machines did, but they clearly edited the language processing part of your brain. I wonder what the limitations of it are. We should experiment later."
"Sure Fer'resi, we can do that."
Vivvix turned back to me "Holy One, why are you armed?" We notice the weapons on your back."
ughhh, I hate that. "Please don't call me Holy One, my name is Melody. I'm armed because we weren't sure what to expect and we wanted to come prepared. I'm the only one armed because I'm the best shot here, and we didn't want to come across as warlike with us all being armed. It was a compromise."
Vivvix's skin subtly changed color, it must be a nod. Neat! "I see, thank you... Melody. Will you be armed in future visits?"
I shrugged. "I don't know yet." I said carefully. If everyone is... not a threat then... I don't see a reason to come armed next time."
Vivvix gave their version of a smile, but I was able to tell it was fake. "That's very nice to hear. Thank you"
Now that sounded menacing. I think I'm going to continue coming to this Starbase armed.
Rapid River Roaring led us towards a large stone looking building near the center of the promenade. It was either very old or meant to look very old. In front were a fountain and a statue of a being in a pressure suit looking out onto the promenade making a grand gesture. The fountain and the statue were carved in the same stone of the Starbase. "Here we are. It's the administration offices for Reach of the Might of Vzzx. There is a cantina here that offers many different kinds of food. I'm sure we can find something pleasing for you to consume here."
As they approached the building Captain Q'ari stopped dead. She was staring at the statue and was clearly frightened, almost shaking. Fer'resi, noticing her, followed her gaze and also immediately was frightened. "M-Melody." Fer'resi said, his voice catching. "Look at the statue."
I turned and looked at it and gasped. Omar noticed us, followed our gaze and softly said "holy shit."