The human looks at her and meets her eyes before attempting a psychic scan. She frowns slightly. "I've never been here before in my life. I've never encountered magic like it before either."

The psionic read is rebuffed for a moment. The bird/dragon thing blinks and then allows contact.

You are a psion. Convenient. The mushy sounds of English are difficult without a tongue. 

Wariness, but confidence, is there. She has at least three weapons. She has no hostile intent. 

I do not think this place is dangerous. If someone wished to kill you or I a spatial anomaly like this is not the most efficient way to do so.

Usually people don't notice me. That's different.

These thoughts are accompanied with interest, excitement, and a note of confusion.

I don't expect anyone has reason to kill me. What species are you? I've never seen someone like you before?

I am of the [Travellers/Wanderers/Morrigi] If you have not heard of us you must be from a community of humans not connected with the ones I know. You seem like the humans I know, though I have never met a human psion. They are rare.

You've met humans before? I don't think anyone on my planet has met aliens, there are tales of such things but they don't tend to have evidence to back them up. I don't think any such story has described aliens who look like yourself either.

Here is an impression of the Humanity she knows.

SolForce marines in power armor fighting by her side, or against her. Spaceships with blocky construction, gigantic ring engines and long, thin forward sections. The United Nations of Earth building military outposts everywhere for 'national security'. Racial pride for 'blood simple monkeys' clawing their way up to a method of FTL that the other species do not really understand. Rowdy bars with pungent alcohol smell and a black market dealer, a human with cybernetics, across from her at an undersized table.

Of course, there seems to be something more complicated going on here. I suspect I am not on Karvaaia anymore.

My door to this place was on Earth, and probably pretty far in the past from your perspective 2005 if your humans are still using the same calendar. We don't have spaceships like that. We barely have spaceships at all.

Temporal anomaly?

The Hivers supposedly experimented with Time. And so did the- No. She shies away from that thought hard enough to break the mental link.

She shakes her head. "I will determine if I can return home when I wish to."

She goes and opens the door. Her base station reconnects immediately - and she breathes in the spices on the market street as other Morrigi wander by.

She leaves a quick message and closes it again. "Whatever this is, it may be a unique opportunity."

"It might at that, the door to the science building usually doesn't lead here."

"While I am highly skilled and very intelligent, my abilities are not ideal for contact with a technologically primitive civilization. You will not find a mercenary nearly so useful as an engineer."

"Maybe not, but you know much more about your technology than anyone where I come from. Are you sure you want to take the risk though? If my door starts leading to the science building again there's no guarantee you'll ever get home."

"I'm not egg-crazy like my clan-sisters. Nor favored by my clan. I must fulfill my desires with other things. It would be... Tolerable. Even if the spirits of my ancestors would shun me, exploring the Earth would be worth it. That is not necessarily the tradeoff, however. I would be willing to explain the science that I know and give you a pocket-library in exchange for some sort of rare human cultural artifact that would be prized back home."

"I'm not sure what sort of rare cultural artifact you mean."

"Treasures. Golden and silver things. Prized handmade art. Historical objects like an old Khan's sword. That sort of thing. We Morrigi like treasures a great deal."

"I really don't own anything like that. I'm pretty poor."

"Perhaps something mundane that I could convincingly create a story for, then? Oh well. I may wish to migrate to your world after all. I am sure there are many clan-leaders who would like to purchase textbooks from the future, or close enough to it."

"I'm sure there are. You would cause quite the commotion on campus."

She tilts her head. And re-establishes the link.

Kaiva is greedy and adventurous and self-interested and confident/vain. She recognizes this about herself. She is the very embodiment of the- (a twinge of pain) -male ideal for Morrigi, morally speaking.

However, I have no hostile designs on your planet. I sincerely think that if you opened your door and I followed through, neither of us would regret it.

I believe you. If that's what you want to do we can do that. I'd rather you not tell people I'm a psion. I don't know what people might do if they found out, so I avoid telling people I don't know very well.

There is a thrill as Kaiva learns she knows one of Sapphire's secrets. I will not tell them. Except for some very compelling reason to. Trustworthiness is a resource. Regarding going through to Earth, Perhaps. Though we have not exhausted our conversation. We should, perhaps, explore this place anyway instead of just talking.

She reaches into her backpack and pulls out a small - drone? - which floats in midair above her, spinning around. She also puts on a visor of some kind.

That's strange, usually I lose contact with people when they look away.

I am a psion as well. Perhaps- She deliberately drops the link. She tries to re-establish without eye contact. "...I am closer than I expected to performing mind-link, myself." Clicking noise that might be laughter. "It appears I was sustaining one even when you stopped." Eye contact again.

I wonder why our magics work differently. Do you know if human psions in your time work like you?

Humanity does not have psions, their government would have you believe. Everyone with a military background knows otherwise. Though not much is specifically known. The Black Swimmers- Dolphin aliens -Use psionics differently than the Morrigi, however.

One more reason not to let the government know I have powers. Can your powers do subjective time dilation, perfect memory, or dreamworlds?