There's a roomy, well lit circular space on the other side. In the center of this space is a ring of chairs, Edith Trunhardt occupies one of them.

"Aly. How are you?"

"I still don't know very much because everyone is bad at explaining for my context. And bad at noticing that they are bad at it."

"Not surprising. Most people here have only known one cultural context their whole lives. A handful have known two." She leans back and gazes away into space. "Only me and Sanjana and three others left alive who have known more than the two cultures, and only back in our childhoods at that."

Glossary glossary - "I have not traveled. I think I would be better at it, in the languages I am good at."

"There I go, explaining things sloppily again. My sincere apologies." She considers, and then takes a second stab at supplying Aly with useful context regarding her new surroundings. "It's not just that my people haven't traveled. It's that they have no where to travel to. There's nothing beyond our borders but desolation." She pauses again. "Was the place you're from like that?"

"No."

In addition to the big SECURE AREA doors, the circular room has a couple of smaller entrances distributed across its circumference.

Sanjana Kaur enters through one of these doors.

"We're ready."

"For what?"

"Whatever you can show us. Hopefully."

(Edith stands up and moves to Devika's side. She says to the soldier: "Let's let the scientists have their fun.")

...Aly picks up her scooter and spins the raised wheel. "I only have this."

Sanjana purses her lip slightly.

"Can you describe what 'this' is?"

"My scooter. You made it for me."

Sanjana shakes her head, heaves a This Is Going To Be A Long Day, Isn't It? sort of sigh, and heads back through the door she came from.

"Follow me, Aly."

Aly gets back on her scooter and complies.

(Behind them, Devika and Edith duck out through a different passage)

"Here."

Sanjana stops in front of a large wall screen, upon which she summons forth a moving image. The image on the screen depicts Aly first receiving her new scooter and then folding it away, as though seen from one of the corners of the room they were in. The moving image loops over and over again through the five seconds in which the scooter closes.

"Could you explain how you made your scooter move in that way?"

"No, you don't have words for it."

"Suppose we made up a word for the phenomenon itself. Could you potentially describe, using our words, the source of that phenomenon? The rules of that phenomenon?"

"Source? It doesn't have a source. I just do it. I could tell you the rules with enough words, I'm trying to learn more."

"Thank you. That's exactly what we're looking for."

Sanjana shuts off the screen, and moves on to the next room.

"In the mean time, we'd like to take some more precise measurements of you and the item when you're performing... erhm, 'The Phenomenon'?"

There are several other sciency-looking people in the next room, fussing over a bunch of sciency-looking instruments.

"Measurements of me?"

"We have machines that can look closely at things. Or listen. Or taste. Or employ senses that humans don't have. With these machines recording a phenomenon as it occurs, we can learn more about that phenomenon than we could from observation alone."

As Sanjana speaks, her aids are attempting to usher Aly towards a space near center of the room which all the machines seem to be pointed at.

Aly does not consent to be ushered. "That is not a good explanation."

“I could give you a document detailing the tests we have planned, and you could hunt your way through technical definitions word by word, after we’ve finished the first round of measurements?”