The napkin does not respond.

Yeah, she'll have to wait. She sets the tray aside. She studies. The implants are very helpful but it is still really hard to learn a language in two days.

Nobody bothers her for the next several hours apart from further delivery of meals.

Her next meal does not have a note on the napkin.

The one after that does, though.

It reads: "If I told you who I was, your implants would make you distrust me."

How? Why?

The napkin does not respond.

What a surprise. She studies on, sometimes speaking aloud to practice constructing sentences.

The doctor comes by a few hours later and knocks on the door to Aly's quarters.

"How are you doing?"

"I'm all right. I still don't know very much about what is going on or where I am because people seem bad at explaining things for my context but when I have learned to ask better questions I think that will help." After the first three words that's all read off a page, not composed in her head in real time, but still.

"We'll get you started on history books in just a little bit, which should help a lot with Knowing What's Going On."

The doctor lets herself in.

"That was a very impressive sentence just now, by the way. Could you set your things down for a minute? Need to check up again on how your body's holding up post-surgery."

Aly sets her things down accordingly.

A checkup commences.

"Everything's going well. You won't need to stay in this facility much longer."

"Where will I go?"

"Well, you could stay here if that's what makes you most comfortable. Otherwise, hmmm... we don't have any existing proceedures for Visitors From Other Worlds, but we do have resettlement programs for people rescued from the draco territories and I imagine we could nudge things so you qualify for that."

"What are the programs?"

"Oh. They're designed to help people starting over again from nothing. You'd get a place to stay, food vouchers, some vocational training for a job there's current demand for..."

She trails off, and then laughs a little.

"Of course, I heard that you'd offered to help the scions out with some sort of important scientific undertaking related to your homeland? If so, you're probably already set as far as vocation goes. Don't imagine the scions will allow you to want for anything, if you're making that sort of contribution to the Colonies."

"Scions?"

"I guess you're on a first-name basis with them, huh? Edith and Sanjana. They were two of the founders of these colonies. The things they and the other scions did--crossing the span between stars, carving a foothold out of this hellish place, biofabricating the first successor humans--it's the stuff of myth."

"People are bad at explaining stuff for my context," Aly says.

"The scions are Very Important People that have been here for a Very Long Time."

"That isn't explaining, that is - simple-ing -" She has to construct the last word out of guesses.

"It's hard to put things in your context without knowing what your context is. With how well you're doing with your words, though, I bet we'll be able to bridge that gap before too long?"

"I hope so."

"And in the mean time?"

The doctor goes over to the desk in the corner of Aly's room and starts messing around with the 'computer' located there.

"A history book will probably help you out a lot more than I could."

The computer lights up. A dizzying array of boxes and letters flick across its screen, and then it's displaying what looks like a book page.

"You can use these arrow keys, here, to move forward or backward in the text. You actually weren't scheduled to have one of these until after your introductory computer use course but I don't suppose there's much harm in doing things a little out of order."

"Thank you."

"Let us know if you need anything else."

She departs.